LSU Baseball Suffers Through Another Cold Hitting Night to Drop Series with Mississippi State 3-0
The LSU offense remained in the gutter on a windy and brisk Saturday evening as the Tigers dropped their SEC opening series to Mississippi State with a 3-0 loss, squandering another stellar start on the mound from Landon Marceaux.
Marceaux was still very good in his first SEC start of the season but he definitely would run into a few scares throughout the evening. His command wasn't quite at the elite level we've come to expect through his first four starts of the season but it was enough to hold the Bulldogs without a run for the first four innings of the game.
What was really working Marceaux Saturday evening was the placement of his fastball, forcing the Bulldogs offense into plenty of slow rollers and makeable plays for the Tiger defenders. If it weren't for an error off of Jordan Thompson, Marceaux might've gone five straight innings without allowing a run.
Because the run was unearned, Marceaux was able to extend his scoreless inning streak to 31.1 innings dating back to last season, one of the best in program history. He surpassed Greg Smith's 28.2 innings and sits behind Jared Poche's 32, Ben McDonald's 44.2 and Aaron Nola's 54.
The LSU (15-5, 0-2) batters remained perplexed with the Mississippi State pitching as the Tigers went the first five innings with just two hits. There was a point in the third and fourth innings where five straight batters stuck out against starter Will Bednar.
In fact through 13 innings of play during the weekend series, the Tigers offense had just one run on six total hits and put just nine runners on base. After a 12 strikeout performance on Friday night from the offense, 10 more batters would strikeout on Saturday to make for an equally disappointing start to the series for the offense.
LSU's biggest blown opportunity came right out of the gate as back-to-back hits from Dylan Crews and Tre' Morgan weren't able to plate any runs because of a strikeout and double play. The Tigers would also put two on in the fifth with two outs but couldn't convert.
The Bulldogs would tack on an insurance run in the eighth and ninth innings and in a game where the offense couldn't get anything going, it was an insurmountable feat.
“We’re facing some adversity right now but I know once things start coming together and string some hits together we’ll be fine,” Crews said.
After Bednar was replaced in the sixth, the offense still couldn't find a rhythm as LSU could only put four runners on base over the final four innings, two on walks and eighth inning singles from Crews and Cade Doughty that failed to bring in a run.
Though this is a young team still finding out its identity, Marceaux was quite candid in making it known this group isn’t making excuses.
“We’re 20 games in, we’ve seen some really good arms and we’re not using that excuse anymore,” Marceaux said. “Yes there are things we need to improve on but there also things we’re doing extremely well. I think once we close that gap, I think that’s when we’ll really hit our stride.”
Through two games against the Bulldogs, the Tigers have mustered up one run and nine hits. LSU will look to avoid the sweep on Sunday afternoon with AJ Labas on the mound.
Photo courtesy of LSUsports.