LSU Baseball
By Hunt Palmer
THE STORY
The crisis was averted.
That verbiage may be too strong, but starting 0-3 in SEC play with the finale being a coughed up 6-0 lead would have felt heavy. To the Tigers’ credit, they found some late offense and ran away from Vanderbilt 16-9 to salvage Sunday.
LSU scored five in the seventh and five in the eighth to take control.
The five in the seventh came out of nowhere. Vanderbilt reliever Brennan Seiber had retired 13 straight while his offense clawed back from six runs down to knot the score.
Seiber plunked John Pearson, and Chris Stanfield chopped a swinging bunt toward third. It was fired into foul territory down the right field line. Steven Milam punched an RBI single to left to give LSU the lead again and chase Seibert, and Jake Brown flew the batter’s eye in center for a three-run bast to make it 10-6. Derek Curiel followed that up with a triple. He’d score on a sac fly.
Brown and Curiel both squared up lefty reliever Jacob Faulkner which is a huge positive.
LSU collected four more hits in the five-run eighth including RBI knocks from Brown, Cade Arrambide and Omar Serna.
The offensive emergence completely shifted the narrative on the weekend, because after a four-hit Saturday, the early six-spot from the offense was largely on the back of Vanderbilt starter Nate Taylor. His command was non-existent.
Before Taylor recorded an out, he hit two Tigers, walked another and uncorked a run-scoring passed ball. Arrambide doubled home a pair off the big wall in left field, and productive outs from Seth Dardar and Serna nudged the lead to four before Vanderbilt ever grabbed a bat.
Taylor walked Pearson to leadoff the second, balked him to second and surrendered an RBI hit from Stanfield to end his disaster of a day.
William Schmidt countered with a strong but short start.
The Tiger sophomore only allowed one run on a solo homer over the first four innings. Vanderbilt fouled pitch after pitch off to up his pitch count. Another solo homer came to lead off the fifth, and a four-pitch walk that didn’t look comfortable ended Schmidt’s day after 84 pitches.
The stuff was really good, as usual. Schmidt blew some good hitters away with heaters in the high 90s and was consistently in the strike zone.
Things got hairy for LSU in the middle innings. At one point, six straight batted balls were Commodore hits. Three of those were RBI doubles off Mavrick Rizy in the fifth. Santiago Garcia then got a big strikeout with the tying run at second.
Vanderbilt tied things with a booming opposite-field solo shot to leadoff the sixth, but LSU took control in the next half.
Deven Sheerin allowed a three-run homer in the seventh after errors by both Steven Milam and Jack Ruckert. At this point, Ruckert probably can’t be relied on as a defensive replacement. He’s made two errors in that spot, and Sunday’s was a routine one-hopper that should have been an easy double play. Instead, it resulted in three runs thanks to the next swing.
LSU played very, very poorly in spots over the weekend. Things looked bleak midway through on Sunday. To their credit, the Tigers kept fighting and earned a win. Though a sweep felt possible, LSU was technically one pitch from winning the series.
Losing a series on the road is no crime. The next six SEC games are at home. LSU will need to make some hay in that spot despite strong starts by Oklahoma and Kentucky.
THE SCORECARD
Jake Brown: 2-for-4, HR, 6 RBI, 2 R
Cade Arrambide: 2-for-5, 2B, 3 RBI
William Schmidt: 4 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 6 K, 84 pitches, 51 strikes
LSU: 10-for-34 (.294)
LSU w/ runners on: 8-for-18 (.444)
LSU w/ RISP: 7-for-16 (.438)
LSU made three errors.
LSU pitching struck out 17.
WHAT’S NEXT
LSU returns to action Tuesday against Grambling State at Alex Box Stadium. Oklahoma visits Baton Rouge for second SEC series. That will begin Thursday night.
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