With their Big 12 opponents awaiting them for the Shriners’ Classic in Houston, LSU still had business to attend to in Alex Box on Wednesday against the UNO Privateers. Consider 11 runs on nine hits as business well-managed. The Tigers defeated the Privateers 11-3.
LSU’s offense is the talk of the town and rightfully so. They have scored at least six runs in every game this season, with 109 total on the year. Cade Doughty started the onslaught in the first with a double to left that scored Tre’ Morgan and moved Dylan Crews to third, where he subsequently scored on a passed ball. Morgan and Crews then knocked in two RBIs the next inning to get LSU to six runs in just two innings.
Jacob Berry tattooed a ball to the right field bleachers in the fifth inning for a solo home run. He tied Brayden Jobert for the HR lead on the team with four on the season. Doughty soon tried to top his teammates with a bomb in the seventh inning, his third of the season. That seventh inning saw LSU bring nine batters to the plate and score four runs.
“We had a good plan going into the game,” Berry said. “Try to barrel the ball and move the offense. I think we did a good job of that tonight.”
Garrett Edwards garnered the start but didn’t last long as he struggled with his command. Grant Taylor came on in relief and slowed the UNO offense down that had plated two runs early themselves. Taylor has been solid in his two appearances this season, with 6.0 IP and a 0.00 ERA to show for it.
Elsewhere, a quartet of transfers in Riley Cooper, Bryce Collins, Paul Gervase and Eric Reyzelman helped LSU finish the game without spending too many pitches ahead of the big weekend. They gave up just one run in relief for the remainder of the evening.
“The bullpen continues to be awesome,” Jay Johnson said. “It continues to be a strength of this team. I really believed that it would be and it’s all bearing out. That was a big-time performance by all of those guys.”
“I think that (performance) is a really good showing of a good staff, where you can have a bunch of guys come out of the pen, be locked in, be ready to go and get outs.” Taylor said.
Overall, Johnson should be pleased with the progress the team has made ahead of their big test in Texas this weekend. The pitching is coming together, and the offense is living up to the lofty expectations set before them in preseason.
“I’m just pleased with the approach to what we need to do to be successful,” Johnson said. “We’re trying to win every game that we play, but we’re also trying to build a really solid foundation here, how we go about things, culture, all of that as a way of doing things, and I think that’s been really sound so far.”
LSU takes on Oklahoma first on Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., then they face college baseball’s highest ranked team in Texas on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. They close out the weekend with a Sunday night game against Baylor at 7:00 p.m. Their next home game will be Tuesday, March 8^th against McNeese State at 6:30 p.m.