Now that the calendar has flipped to April, spring is truly in the air: the temperatures are getting warmer, the sun is shining longer, and the LSU Baseball games are getting sillier.
This time around, it was the Tigers (21-10, 5-5) scoring six runs in the eighth and ninth innings to rally back and beat Tennessee (19-11, 3-7) to take game one of this weekend’s series 7-5.
Landon Mack got the better of Friday evening’s pitcher’s duel between he and Casan Evans, but the Tennessee bullpen faltered late
and LSU was able to guerrilla ball their way to a win. Mack made his first Friday night start of the season and was excellent: seven innings, three hits, one run, struck out 10 and left the game having retired 14 straight Tigers.
Once Mack left the game, however, is when LSU rallied. Brandon Arvidson came on in relief of Mack in the eighth inning and walked the bases loaded. Arvidson did manage to get Jake Brown to hit a liner right to shortstop, but was replaced for Bo Rhudy who was tasked with facing Derek Curiel. He lost, and Curiel hit an eighth inning grand slam to give LSU a 5-4 lead.
Seth Dardar then followed up Curiel’s grand slam with a solo homer of his own to up LSU’s lead to 6-4.
And if all that wasn’t enough, Chris Stanfield tacked on an extra insurance run with a solo home run in the ninth inning. All seven of LSU’s runs came by way of the long ball, with Jake Brown homering in the third inning to get the Tigers on the board.
Deven Sheerin got LSU across the finish line. Sheerin took the mound in the eighth inning working with a 6-4 lead, and got the final six outs to pick up his second save of the season. Things got a little hairy for Sheerin in the eighth inning as he put the tying run aboard with two outs, but he struck out Garrett Wright on three pitches to escape.
The ninth was a little more clean for Sheerin. He got three strikeouts to end the game, but did surrender a solo home run to Blake Grimmer to trim LSU’s lead down to 7-5. But Sheerin got Reese Chapman to strike out looking and that was that.
The Tigers are now back to .500 in SEC play, and they’re a win away from winning their second consecutive conference series. They’ll try to do that tomorrow evening at 5:00 P.M. on ESPN2.
