By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
NASHVILLE – Jake Brown took a sad LSU baseball series and made it better.
Slightly.
With unranked Vanderbilt already clinching the SEC season-opening series with wins on Friday and Saturday, Brown’s three-run homer lit a dormant Tigers’ offensive fuse that produced a 16-9 victory Sunday afternoon.
Brown’s blast in the top of the seventh came after LSU blew a 6-0 lead and Vanderbilt (13-8, 2-1 SEC) tied the game at 6-6 in the bottom of the sixth.
After going scoreless for four straight innings, the 13th-ranked Tigers (15-7, 1-2 SEC) broke loose with eight of their 10 hits when they plated five runs each in the seventh and eighth innings.
“Our guys take a lot of pride in this,” Tigers’ coach Jay Johnson said, “ and they haven’t played as well as they want to, and there are some negative feelings that come along with those things. I loved how we took at-bats today.”
The fact LSU scored 31 runs and batted. 267 in the three-run series will be largely ignored because the Tigers’ inept pitching and shoddy fielding put them in chase mode for the majority of the first two games.
LSU trailed for 16 of 18 innings in the 13-12 Game 1 loss won on a Vandy walk-off homer, and the 11-3 Game 2 defeat in the Tigers had just four hits.
Fourteen LSU pitchers – three starters and 11 relievers – gave up 33 runs, the most ever by the Tigers in an SEC opening series. Eleven pitchers allowed runs for a terrible 11.07 earned run average.
None of LSU’s starters – Casan Evans in Game 1, Cooper Moore in Game 2 and William Schmidt in Game 3 – lasted more than four innings. They gave up a combined 15 hits (five for extra bases), 14 runs (13 earned), 25 walks, and 30 strikeouts for a 6.88 ERA.
Johnson pulled Schmidt with no outs in the fifth inning on Sunday after his back tightened.
“That guy’s health is the key to my life for the next 18 months,” Johnson said.
LSU entered the weekend ranked 206th of 300 Division 1 teams in fielding percentage (.965), thanks to 23 errors. They added five more this weekend.
“We want to be better, our players want to be better,” Johnson said after Saturday’s loss, “and we will continue to put in the work we need to do in order to get better. I need to do what’s best for our players, so helping them to play better baseball via shifting personnel, via coaching development, is really important. I can tell you that is taking place in a very serious and thoughtful manner.”
GAME 1: VANDERBILT 13, LSU 12 – The Tigers were one and two strikes away from coming back from a 10-4 deficit for an unthinkable SEC opening comeback victory on Friday night when Vanderbilt’s Logan Johnstone hammered a two-run, two-out walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning.
A slew of disastrous pitching from both teams fueled each team’s biggest offensive innings.
GAME 2: VANDERBILT 11, LSU 3 – Vandy starting pitcher Wyatt Nadeau allowed three runs on four hits in seven innings with two walks and 10 strikeouts on Saturday.
The Commodores scored six runs in the fifth inning to take an 8-1 lead. Pinch-hitter Chris Maldonado’s three-run homer exploded the rally.
Vandy added two runs in the sixth before LSU cut the lead to 10-3 in the seventh on catcher Omar Serna Jr.’s two-RBI single.
GAME 3: LSU 16, VANDERBILT 9 – Brown tied his career high with six RBI as he went 2 for 4 on Sunday.
After the Commodores tied the game at 6-6 in the sixth, LSU scored five runs in the top of the seventh. Shortstop Steven Milam lined an RBI single, Brown blasted a three-run homer and Seth Dardar lifted a sacrifice fly.
Vanderbilt sliced the lead to 11-9 in the bottom of the seventh.
The Tigers responded with five runs in the eighth as Brown and catcher Cade Arrambide each had two-run singles, and Omar Serna Jr. cracked an RBI single.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com