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A couple of rain showers flushed the good karma out of LSU’s bats on Thursday night.
But when the sun started to shine on Friday and Saturday, the Tigers showed why they are the No. 1 team in the country.
LSU fell 5-1 to Arkansas on Thursday night in a game played during a steady rainstorm at the Razorbacks’ baseball diamond.
But the skies cleared in the final days and the Tigers awoke from their slumber, scoring an easy 16-3 win on Friday and a 7-4 victory on Saturday afternoon to take the series.
The series victory improves the Tigers to 21-3 on the season with a 4-2 mark in SEC play. It was also LSU’s first road series victory of the season.
“This was a great win for us in a very tough place to play,” LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri said. “I’m very proud of the way our guys competed to come back and win this series after we fell short in the first game on Thursday night.”
Saturday afternoon’s series-clinching game win was a nail biter.
LSU landed the first blows of the afternoon, going ahead 2-0 in the top of the third inning and then 3-0 in the fifth.
Second baseman Jared Foster sparked the two-run third with a solo dinger to make the score 1-0. Right fielder Mark Laird made it 2-0 a few at-bats later when he singled and scored designated hitter Chris Sciambra, who doubled.
Shortstop Alex Bregman was the muscle behind the offense in the fifth, jolting a double into the outfield that scored Laird.
But after the early dominance, the rest of the action was back and forth. LSU countered an Arkansas run in the bottom of the fifth with two of its own in the seventh to take a 5-1 lead.
But the Razorbacks grinded back into the game with two runs of their own in the seventh and one in the eighth to send the game to the ninth with the Tigers ahead 5-4.
In the final frame, LSU drug in the dagger when third baseman Connor Hale blasted a two-run home run to put the Tigers ahead 7-4.
From there, LSU closer Jesse Stallings sealed the deal, recording five outs to put the victory on ice.
Mainieri said he’s pleased with how his team matured against a tough SEC opponent. True freshman starter Jake Godfrey earned the win by pitching five innings and allowing just one run.
“We faced some very good pitching from Arkansas today, and we came through with several big hits,” Mainieri said. “Godfrey did a tremendous job in his first SEC road start, giving us the five innings we needed from him, and we played excellent defense throughout the game.”
A day before Saturday’s tough win, the Tigers hammered Arkansas in a 16-3 blowout. LSU hammered 21 hits to plate its 16 runs, and 10 total Tigers had hits and RBIs in the win. Foster led the way for the Tigers going 3-of-4 with 3 RBI. Center fielder Andrew Stevenson was just as good, stroking four hits in six at-bats.
Dynamite true freshman pitcher Alex Lange recorded the win, tossing seven innings, allowing four hits and one win.
Mainieri said his freshman is emerging as one of the top players in America.
“Alex has amazing talent,” Mainieri said. “But his best quality is the way he competes. He just went out tonight and competed with everything he had. When he has the mindset that he’s just going to attack the hitters, he’s pretty good and he’s going to keep getting better.”
LSU didn’t enjoy the same luck in Thursday night’s loss, as sophomore Jared Poche was hit hard by the Razorbacks’ hitters.
Poche allowed 10 hits and five runs in more than three innings of action in the loss. He said afterward that he never felt comfortable on the sloppy diamond in Thursday night’s wet and rainy game.
The coach agreed, and said he expects Poche to be better in the future.
“He just didn’t have his stuff tonight,” Mainieri said.
LSU will take the field beginning Friday night for a three-game home series with Kentucky.
The Wildcats are 2-4 in SEC play, but are still considered by most to be one of the top teams in the country.
Kentucky was swept by South Carolina to start SEC play, but rebounded this past weekend and beat the Bulldogs for two out of three games.
