April Showers Bring May Flowers
Not only was it showering homers, but it was showering hits, walks, and runs. This was a very high scoring, offensive series for better or worse. There was a combined 58 runs in this series; 19.33 per game and 9.67 per team per game. There was also a total of 9 home runs by both teams, LSU hitting 8 of them. Game 1 made us think that this series would be smooth sailing against the #12 team in the nation, but it was anything but that. We started RED HOT scoring 14 runs in the first 3 innings. What was crazy was that Kentucky had 1 out with a runner on and they decide to intentionally walk Dylan Crews... in the first inning! They thought it would be easier to face Tommy White I guess, which statistically they would be correct, Dylan Crews leads Tommy White in every offensive statistic. That decision came back to bite them as Tommy White scorches a 2-RBI double to score Gavin Dugas and Crews. Now they have a runner on second and 1 out and of course Cade Beloso gets hit by pitch. I swear we have to be leading the nation in hit by pitches. I don't know if we are crowding the plate, if the pitchers are trying to pitch inside because we don't well inside, or if they're trying to do it on purpose; regardless, we're getting on base. Anyway, Jarred Jones singles and now the bases are loaded for Jordan Thompson who has a homerun streak riding. No big deal, he hits a grand slam to extend the lead 6-0 in the 1st. Paul Skenes was not himself on Thursday. He gives up his first run of the game in the 2nd. In the 3rd, we had 2 batters hit by pitch this time- Morgan and Beloso again. Jarred Jones comes up to the plate with the bases loaded again and guess what he does. He walks to bring in a run. What? You thought we would hit another grand slam an inning later? Well you'd be right. Brayden Jobert hits the grandest of slams with the bases reloaded. In the 3rd inning Crews gets hit by pitch making it a 4th batter hit by pitch just in the 3rd inning. Beloso would get his revenge hitting a home run. The 3 run kind, not the grand slam kind unfortunately. Over the next 2 innings, Skenes would give up 4 more runs brining his run total to 5, but only 4 were earned. Besides the South Carolina game where he came out early due to the rain delay, this was his first non-quality start (6+ IP, 3 or less ER). His ERA is still sub-2.00 and WHIP is still sub-1.00 and he also surpassed 100 strikeouts on the season, becoming the first pitcher in Division I to do so. Both teams' bats were pretty quiet the rest of the game; Kentucky scored 1 more run off of Riley Cooper and LSU scored 2 more runs, walking it off in the 8th, 10 run ruling them. We would win 16-6 in 8 innings.
Friday was a circus show. This was the highest scoring game of the series, yet believe it or not, there were only 2 homeruns by either team- 1 hit by LSU (Tommy White) and 1 hit by Kentucky. Even though this was the highest scoring game, I'm not here to talk about offense. I'm here to talk about pitching and defense. Pitching and defense was AWFUL. LSU committed 3 errors brining their error total on the weekend up to 4. But there should have been 1 more error that they scored a hit. Here's the situation: the score is 6-3, Kentucky has bases loaded with 2 out, and a full count to the 7 hole hitter, the right fielder for Kentucky hits a lazy fly ball to right field sending Brayden Jobert chasing after it. Jobert basically camps under and... drops it allowing a go ahead bases clearing triple. You could physically feel the energy leaving the ballpark. I thought he lost in the lights, some say the wind brought it back towards center field, either way, he dropped it allowing 3 runs to score and the runner on 3rd would eventually score when the inning should have ended after only 1 run. 2 innings later Kentucky would score 5 more runs on 0 homeruns extending their lead to 12-6. So to recap, heading into the top of the 5th inning, we were leading 6-2 and 2 innings later, we're losing 12-6. 10 unanswered runs by Kentucky. Embarrassing. LSU would try to come back by scoring 4 more runs making the score 12-10, but it wasn't enough. We would lose 13-10. We were also hit by pitch 5 more times in game 2 bringing our HBP total for the weekend up to 10.
We got off easy on Saturday by only getting hit by pitch twice, which brings our total up to 12, averaging 4 a game. This was probably the most exciting game as one team did not dominate for the whole 9 innings. There was too much going on to even go into it in detail, so let's just say 2 clutch homeruns by Jarred Jones helped propel us to a win 7-6, to win the series 2 games to 1. One more thing that I will say is that Jarred Jones got into a little bit of trouble with the home plate umpire after appearing to yell at the pitcher after hitting his second homerun of the afternoon. He said something I probably shouldn't even say here, but I'll try- "f*** you, p****".
There's been some negativity saying that LSU isn't playing like the #1 team, but let's not forget LSU is still undefeated in SEC series making them 4-0-1 and 8-0-1 in all series. We have only lost 1 non-SEC game and 1 game to an unranked opponent (the same game to Iowa). I once again expect LSU to remain ranked #1 in the nation. LSU will play ULL at the Box on Tuesday and then travel Oxford, Mississippi to face unranked Ole Miss. LSU won't play another ranked team for the rest of the regular season, so it's only uphill from here.
