LSU romps by Alcorn St., 19-0
LSU’s second baseball game of the season was a lot like its first game as the Tigers took advantage of its opponent’s generosity to build a big early lead and coast to victory.
On Saturday, eighth-ranked LSU scored three unearned runs in the first, built an 11-0 lead after three and cruised to a 19-0 rout of Alcorn State in Alex Box Stadium. One night earlier, six Tigers batters scored in the first two innings after either being hit by pitches or drawing walks in LSU’s 10-2 rout over Air Force.
Saturday’s margin of victory was LSU’s largest in coach Paul Mainieri’s six seasons. The last time the Tigers beat an opponent by as many as 19 runs was Feb. 24, 2001, when they beat Duquesne 24-5. The previous largest margin under Mainieri came in a 25-8 victory against Centenary in 2010, which also was the second game of the season.
Mason Katz had a three-run triple and a sacrifice fly, and Raph Rhymes and JaCoby Jones each had two hits and two runs batted in to lead LSU’s offense.
The Tigers, who scored just one run after the first two innings Friday didn’t let up Saturday, scoring in six of the eight innings in which they batted, including a six-run sixth after already having a 12-0 lead.
“We stressed continuing doing what we did in the beginning all the way to the end, no matter who was in the game,” Katz said. “(Friday night) was opening night and everybody had a few jitters and we started swinging for the fences. Everybody wanted to hit a home run. Now we’re recognizing that it’s a long season and we need to make every play, every inning.”
Ryan Eades (1-0) pitched five scoreless innings, allowing just one hit. He walked one and struck out a career-high eight.
“I’m not trying to strike everybody out,” Eades said. “I’m just trying to be aggressive and pound the strike zone. Tonight, I was able to get some strikeouts. I was able to locate my fastball, and my slider and my changeup were working for me.”
Eades said the one-hour delay, which was announced in the middle of the afternoon, didn’t throw off his preparation.
“When I woke up, it was storming, so I just got up and stayed active,” Eades said. “We knew it was going to be this kind of game with some kind of delay. I just tried to stay focused and keep my mind on the game.”
Eades set the tone in the top of the first when he retired the side in order, striking out all three batters looking.
“That gave us a big boost coming in,” Jones said. “It let us know that Ryan was going to have a good night. We felt good going into the bottom of the first.”
LSU will play Air Force at 2 p.m. Sunday. The start was pushed back an hour to accommodate Alcorn State and Air Force, who will play at 10 a.m. in a game postponed from Saturday morning because of rain.
Once the game started after the delay Saturday, it looked a lot like the Tigers’ season opener Friday night.
For the second consecutive game Tyler Hanover led off and was hit by a pitch. Casey Yocom reached on second baseman Antolin Morales’ fielding error. After Rhymes hit into a force at third and Katz struck out, Jones singled home Yocom. A wild pitch by starting pitcher Troy Williams brought home Rhymes and Jones scored on a throwing error by third baseman Ryan Akins.
The Tigers added two runs in the second on Grant Dozar’s single, Hanover’s hit-and-run single, Rhymes’ RBI-single and Katz’s sacrifice fly.
LSU knocked Williams out during a six-run third. He gave up Ty Ross’ RBI single before giving way to Kevin Gonzalez, who walked Rhymes with the bases loaded, gave up a three-run triple to Katz and an RBI double to Jones. Williams (0-1) gave up six hits and nine runs, six earned, in two-plus innings.
The Tigers made it 12-0 in the fifth when Beau Didier homered to right for LSU’s first homer of the season. In the sixth, Didier added an RBI on fielder’s-choice grounder, Jared Foster hit a two-run double, Chris Sciambra had a two-run triple and Austin Nola hit an RBI grounder to make it 18-0. Foster was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force home the final run in the seventh.
Eleven batters had at least one of LSU’s 14 hits and eight players had at least one RBI.
“That’s what we need to do,” Tigers coach Paul Mainieri said. “We had couple of hit-and-run singles that created some situations for us. We ran the bases really well, and we got some clutch, two-out RBI hits.”
Joe Broussard started the sixth and pitched two scoreless innings, allowing three hits and striking out three. Chris Cotton pitched a perfect eighth, striking out two, and Nick Rumbelow pitched a scoreless ninth, allowing a hit and a walk and striking out two.