LSU baseball would fall apart defensively on Friday to Ole Miss to lose the first game of the series in a 6-3 contest.
The night looked to be a hot offensive night for the Tigers as they took an early two-run lead on a home run by right fielder Jake Brown in the first inning, but the purple and gold would immediately lose that lead in the bottom half of the inning on a RBI single and a passed ball. Ole Miss would take the lead in the next inning on a solo shot to right center field.
The lead would hold for a good bit of the game, but not without the Tigers trying to come back. The bats were definitely not cold on the night because LSU would scratch the same number of hits against the Rebels with nine throughout the contest, but the issue would be leaving runners on base. There would be seven runners left on base to end the game.
After a rough midweek loss to Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday, the focus would be getting runners to touch all four bags, and LSU head coach Jay Johnson put an emphasis on that during practice after the contest.
“I don’t have any problem with the energy from batting practice to the beginning of the game to the desire to win,” Johnson said on Wednesday. “I think it came down to: they did a good job of getting off the field… it only impacts the weekend if we choose to let it impact the weekend negatively.”
However, defense would be the Tigers’ Achilles heel. In the eighth inning, the Tigers would receive three routine groundball outs that would have put the game away still tied. Instead, two errors and a tough play that should have probably resulted in an out would load the bases.
All three runs came in to score that inning to put the game away, and it would consequently be Brown that would go down swinging to end the game. He would finish the night one-for-five at the plate.
Pitching wasn’t a problem for the Bayou Bengals on Friday night. For once, the bullpen truly played like it was SEC caliber, and that has been something the Tigers have held onto throughout the season so far.
Johnson said during the midweek press conference that consistency in the bullpen has been a focus for him and the team.
“We structure our program around consistency, mentally and physically training,” Johnson said on Wednesday. “We haven’t, we haven’t gotten that, and just gotta keep pushing forward to it.”
He would get consistency from all of his pitchers on Friday night. Casan Evans started the game on the bump for LSU, and he would throw six innings. He would allow nine hits on three runs. Evans only walked two batters while tallying nine strikeouts.
Zac Cowan would come in to close out the contest, and despite getting pulled after allowing all three game-separating ru wns, which were all a product of three defensive errors that would have gotten the Tigers out of the inning unscathed if the mistakes were not made during this inning.
LSU would still fall to Ole Miss due to the dramatic eighth inning, despite the hot bats and steady pitching. The Tigers will try to score the runners that were left on base in Game 2 to try and force a rubber match-game on Sunday.
