After a shaky victory on Tuesday over NDSU, LSU baseball responded with fireworks, mercy-ruling the Bison in a rematch on Wednesday.
Following their 5-0 week last week, beating Nicholls, DBU, Kansas State, Nebraska and Sam Houston State, the Tigers faced the North Dakota State Bison in a two-game midweek series.
On Tuesday, LSU struggled deeply, both on the mound and in the field. Though it was their sixth game in eight days, the Tigers looked very uncharacteristic.
LSU head coach Jay Johnson described the game as a “clunker” and that is about as good a description as any. The Tigers had three errors on the day, and struggled immensely on the mound, pitching six different arms.
Whether it was because the Tigers were worn out, mentally or physically, or if they were just having a bad day, Connor Ware, Jaden Noot, DJ Primeaux, Chandler Dorsey, Zac Cowan and Casan Evans only struck out 12 of the 43 batters they faced collectively.
However, in their Wednesday matchup, the Tigers turned it around drastically, reaching the run-rule deficit in the third inning and holding it through the seventh.
“I felt like we were locked in,” Johnson said. “I think this is a challenging stretch because we played five games last week, and five games this week.”
While freshman starting pitcher William Schmidt struggled a bit in the second inning, his defense backed him up to get him out of a jam and ended the day on a high note.
Schmidt ended his four-inning display today with two hits, one earned run, seven strikeouts on 73 pitches thrown, two below what head coach Jay Johnson wanted him to throw.
“We wanted to go from 60 pitches last week to 75, I think he threw 73, and credit to him; we had two really long innings there and I felt like he’d done his job,” said Johnson.
The Tigers also had a huge day on offense as well, scoring 13 runs off 10 hits.
Jared Jones propelled the Tigers to their midweek win with his two opposite field home runs, scoring three runs himself, and knocking in five of his teammates. He personally accounted for eight of the Tigers 13 runs.
After the Tigers secured the runs needed for the run-rule victory, Johnson decided to shake up the lineup.
In the fourth, freshman Ryan Costello got his first action of the year as he stepped in for Jared Jones at first base, Ashton Larson went to left field, Tanner Reaves to second base and Jared Jones moved to third base.
In the top of fifth, Blaise Priester entered the game at catcher and Dalton Beck stepped onto the mound.
Cade Arrambide entered the game to pinch hit for Josh Pearson, Michael Braswell III pinch hit for Steven Milam and Ethan Frey went to the plate for Jake Brown.
After that, the changes were too numerous to count, as Johnson began to experiment and let younger guys get some in game looks.
The story of this game was the violent response to adversity. In their 11-9 Tuesday win, the Tigers trailed all the way until the eighth, where Milam came to the rescue with a two-RBI double that gave the Tigers a one-run lead.
“We spoke on it today as a team, setting the tone you know, throwing the first punch and we went out there and did that today. I thought it was a great response from yesterday’s game,” Jones said.
Today, the Tigers didn’t give NDSU a chance, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the first inning before going on to throw four scoreless frames, following a run in the second.
After their mercy-rule win, LSU will get a much-needed break until they play North Alabama this Friday, March 7.
