Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me four times, well then you’re Cade Arrambide and I’m the Tennessee Volunteer pitching staff.
Thanks to a new LSU single-game record four home runs by Cade Arrambide, including a grand slam in the 12th inning, LSU (22-11, 6-6) stole yet another game from Tennessee (20-12, 4-8) to win the series on Rocky Top 16-6. Arrambide finished the day 5-6 with four homers and seven RBI.
“What
special performance by Cade Arrambide, and there were so many guys who made clutch plays,” Jay Johnson said after the game. “This is important to them, we’ve fought a lot here lately, and this is a great weekend for our program.”
It’s not too often you a 12 inning game be decided by 10 runs, but Tennessee found a way. Even more impressively is they found a way to blow a 5-1 seventh inning lead and get outscored 15-1 the rest of the way.
LSU’s rally started thanks to three straight home runs by John Pearson, Arrambide, and Seth Dardar. A 5-1 game flipped into a 5-4 game in a blink, but Tennessee still was just a single pitch away from holding off the Tigers and winning the series.
Ironically the biggest play Arrambide might have been in the one instance where the Vols actually managed to get him out. Trailing 5-4 in the ninth inning with the tying run on first base, Arrambide struck out looking on a called strike there that landed somewhere around Arrambide’s ankles. Jay Johnson, rightfully, lost his mind, got tossed and the rally really kicked into action.
From there, LSU would load the bases and bring the tying run 90 feet away. Jake Brown came up to the plate with two out, down to his final strike, and somehow hit a roller up the middle that was just perfectly placed enough for Chris Stanfield to beat the throw, and score the tying run.
The game really turned wacky once extra innings started. Derek Curiel led off the 10th with a beautiful bunt single, made it all the way to third off a single by Steven Milam; but third base coach Josh Jordan gave Curiel the green light to try and score from third, but Curiel couldn’t quite get his hand on home plate before getting tagged out. Milam advanced all the way to third in the excitement but Trent Caraway struck out on three pitches, and John Pearson popped out to foul territory on the first pitch he saw.
Arrambide gave LSU a 6-5 lead in the 11th, but Tennessee answered with a Levi Clark sac fly to tie the game. Clark damn near ended the game with a walk-off home run to center, but Curiel made a leaping catch at the wall to keep the ball inside the park.
And in the 12th inning…I mean what else can you say? LSU scored a program-record 10 (ten) runs, which per Todd Politz is the most the Tigers have ever scored in an extra-inning frame. Milam hit an RBI single to give LSU a 7-6 lead, but the barrage didn’t stop there. In fact, it only began because two batters later Arrambide delivered the killshot grand slam.
Even after the grand slam, LSU was still only halfway done scoring in that inning. Eddie Yamin drove in two runs, Curiel hit an RBI triple, and Milam hit a two-run homer on his second at bat of the inning.
“That win is definitely up there in my coaching career,” Johnson said. “I mean, what a comeback by our team, I’m just so proud of our players. There were so many layers to what happened, and so many players making huge contributions to the win.”
At 6-6 through 12 SEC games, LSU is probably where they should be record wise all things considered. The Tigers had no business losing the first Vanderbilt game or the third Oklahoma game, but they also stole these two games from Tennessee. LSU’s clearly not out of it yet, and they’ve still got plenty of challenging weekends ahead, but they’re treading water and maybe this is the turning point of the season.
Up next LSU comes back home to take on Bethune-Cookman in the midweek, before hitting the road again and heading up to Oxford for a series against Ole Miss. All games this week may be streamed via SEC Network+.
