ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian likes to say you’ll never know what you’ll see at the baseball park, and last night at Alex Box Stadium, LSU fans nearly saw some history on the mound and at the plate.
Jake Brown tied the LSU single-game record with three home runs in his first three at bats, while Casan Evans took a perfect game bid into the fifth inning en route to LSU’s dominant 15-4 win over Sacramento State.
“It was a good performance all the way around,” Jay Johnson said. “The offense was close to our potential;
I’m not going to say we’re capable of scoring 15 runs every game, but that was a pretty electric performance.”
LSU’s bats have been in a slump since getting back from Jacksonville two weeks ago. The Tigers came into Friday losers of two straight: 13-10 to Northeastern Monday night, and 7-2 Wednesday night at The Tigue against ULL. But Friday night, LSU erupted for six home runs and scored 15 runs off of 14 hits.
Jake Brown went nuclear, homering in the first, second, and third innings. He nearly hit the home run cycle with a two-run shot in the first, a solo in the second, and a three-run blast in the third. For the year, Brown is now hitting .431 with eight home runs, and 26 RBI.
“Jake can be a good as he wants to be,” Johnson said. “He’s put in a lot of work, and we’ve seen a lot of improved, controllable things from him as a hitter.”
Brown wasn’t alone, however. Derek Curiel finally broke through with his first homer of 2026 and as far as I can tell it was the hardest hit ball of his career: 108 MPH off the bat and 421 feet to right field Diamond Deck.
Cade Arrambie later crushed a ball 432 feet to dead centerfield, while Steven Milam launched his first home run of the season, landing in the top row of the Diamond Deck.
If the bats were good, Casan Evans was somehow even better. Evans mowed through Sacramento State’s lineup, pitching five perfect innings and finished the night with 5.2 innings, two runs off of three hits, and nine strikeouts against no walks.
“Casan is one of the best pitchers in the country,” Johnson said. “He’s one of the best people in our program, and I have as much confidence in him as anybody we could ever roll out there. He couldn’t be in a better spot to help the Tigers win as we enter SEC play next week.”
Game two of this final weekend series before SEC play has been moved up from 6:00 P.M. to 2:00 because of the inclement weather expected in the area later this evening. The game may still be streamed via SEC Network+, and Cooper Moore is still expected to start.
