What a nasty game.
I don’t mean nasty in a “I’m bitter my team lost” type of way, I mean this game was nasty in a “this is an affront to baseball” type of way and someone, I suppose, had to win. That ended up being Vanderbilt as the Dores walked off LSU 13-12 to win the first SEC game of the season.
Casan Evans had his worst outing as a Tiger. Evans only lasted three innings, but gave up six runs off of five hits, five walks, and a hit batter. Evans walked the bases loaded in the first, and then gave up a two-run
single that gave Vanderbilt a 2-1 lead.
LSU responded in a big way as Jake Brown crushed a three-run home run to right field that gave the Tigers the lead. That’s also right around the time that the wheels fell off for LSU.
LSU scored in the first two innings, but Evans would allow Vanderbilt to respond both times. Working with a 4-2 lead in the second inning, Vanderbilt got a run back to make it a 4-3 game. In the third, an Evans walk and a hit batter helped Vanderbilt push across two more runs to give the Commodores a 5-4 lead.
Evans then gave up a first-pitch leadoff home run to start the fourth inning, and that was the end of his day. Jay Johnson went to Cooper Williams and Williams had an outing so bad it’s actually kind of impressive: four batters faced, four batters walked. Jaden Noot replaced Williams and—you’re never going to believe this—he walked two batters. By the time LSU got the third out, Vanderbilt had pushed across five runs off of just two hits and five walks.. The Commodores ended up getting 12 free passes from Tiger pitching—11 walks and a hit batter.
Give credit to the LSU bats, they didn’t lay down and came all the way back from a 10-4 deficit on the road. Seth Dardar had a massive bases-clearing double to push across three runs in the top of the fifth inning to get LSU back into the game.
If LSU’s pitching was bad, Vanderbilt’s was somehow just as inept. Vandy walked 10 Tigers, hit two more, and threw five wild pitches.
LSU came back with a five-run eighth inning that was aided mostly by Vanderbilt’s poor pitching. In the eighth inning LSU scored five runs off of, I kid you not, three walks, two passed balls, two wild pitches, two hit batters, and a two-run double by Derek Curiel. Perfectly normal night of baseball up in Nashville.
Still, leading 12-10 in the eighth inning, Gavin Guidry came on and breezed through the frame. Guidry went three-up, three-down, and it looked like LSU would steal game one of the series in enemy territory.
And then it blew up in their faces.
Guidry gave up back-to-back singles to start the ninth inning. Vanderbilt got a sacrifice fly to cut the lead down to 12-11, but Guidry got a strikeout looking on three pitches to get LSU to precipice. Instead he hung a curveball to Vandy right fielder Logan Johnstone, who crushed the ball to right centerfield to end the game and give LSU its first real gut punch loss of 2026.
