LSU baseball beat McNeese State 16-0 Tuesday night with help from a career performance from Jared Jones.
After last week’s painful midweek loss to Southern, the Tigers brought the bats Tuesday night. Strong pitching from Kade Anderson and Sam Dutton coupled with juggernaut hitting out of Jones earned an urgently-needed all-around victory.
Head coach Jay Johnson chose to try Jones at leadoff; it paid off immediately and overwhelmingly.

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“Tommy was like ‘Dude, you’re leading off today’. I was like ‘Oh, funny joke,’” Jones said.
Jones took it 385 feet to the left field bleachers in LSU’s first at bat. This set the tone for both himself and the team in what amounted to a historic evening personally.
Three walks followed and Paxton Kling singled to score one. Then Steven Milam drove in three off a triple that dodged foul territory by a hair. In just one inning, the Tigers took a five-run lead.
Jones kept momentum, opening the second with a double. A flawlessly executed bunt by Mac Bingham scored Jones and Ashton Larson, who walked.
Unsatisfied with his dominance thus far, Jones scored two more in the third with a 413-foot homer, also scoring Milam.
Jones couldn’t sustain the magic in the fourth. After a Kling double and two walks, Jones struck out with the bases loaded to end the inning.
Freshman Jake Brown tallied his first home run of his LSU career in the fifth, driving in Tommy White. McNeese struggled to put the inning away after this. Two hit-by-pitches, two walks and two wild pitches gifted LSU two runs.
Worse than the free runs was setting up Jones for a three-run homer thereafter. The Tigers scored seven in the fifth inning alone.
Aiden Moffett closed the game in the seventh with back-to-back strikeouts.
“As much as I want to enjoy this one, its right back to work and getting prepared for a tough SEC weekend,” Jones said.
Any fans entering the game unaware of why Jones has the nickname “Bear” are no longer uncertain. Jones was 4-for-5 with six RBIs, three home runs and a double. Jones tied the LSU record for homers in a game.
While eyes were on Jones, players like Anderson, Dutton, Kling and Milam turned in noteworthy performances.
Anderson threw three innings, striking out four and allowing just one hit. He credits his success to working his fastball up in the zone and the implementation of his slider.
“We got him some rest. I felt like we were asking a lot of him,” Johnson said. “We need guys that can get us six to nine outs in these Southeastern Conference weekends. I think he can do that, but he has to be set up to do that.”
Dutton threw two innings and struck out three, not allowing a hit.
Kling was 2-for-3 with a walk, an RBI and a double. Tuesday’s success sets up for a return to consistent hitting, a significant need out of one of the more important names in LSU’s lineup.
Milam went 1-for-1 with a three RBI triple and two walks.
Freshman Ryan Kucherak got his first start at shortstop over Michael Braswell. Kucherak went 0-for-3 with a walk.
LSU finished with 10 hits, four home runs and allowed just one hit.
“It was probably our best game of the year,” Johnson said. “Did everything well.” 
Despite it not being a top SEC team, a dominant win has the opportunity to reset LSU after an ugly midweek game against Southern and series loss to Vanderbilt.
“I think our approach sometimes is waiting for something to go wrong instead of going out and attacking the game,” Jones said. “We’re trying to get back to that mindset. We’re supposed to win.”