One day after giving up 13 runs in a walk-off loss on Friday night, LSU’s pitching got touched up again as the Tigers fell to Vanderbilt 11-3 on Saturday night in Nashville. LSU’s bats were quiet, just four hits. Even the red-hot Jake Brown went 0-for-2 with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts.
Walks: Walks were an issue for the Tigers again as LSU walked nine hitters. Cooper Moore didn’t have a good start and the bullpen really struggled. Moore allowed four earned runs in four innings. He walked two.
Ethan Plog, who showed in the non-conference to be a left-hander that Jay Johnson could count on, walked three and gave up three runs and only faced five hitters.
Freshmen Zion Theophilus and Regan Ricken also struggled. Theophilus faced seven hitters, walked three and gave up two runs in one inning. Ricken also walked two and gave up a run.
Disastrous 5th inning: A brutal fifth inning by LSU blew open a one run game. It of course started with a four-pitch walk. Moore than gave up back-to-back singles, one was a perfectly placed bunt,
Plog relieved Moore and the inning started to really spin out of control when Zach Yorke handled a grounder and threw home, but it was a wild throw, allowing the first run to score.
Another walk drove in another run. A sacrifice fly made it 4-1 Vanderbilt. And then the big blow, a pinch-hit three-run homer by Vanderbilt’s Chris Maldonado, broke the game open.
The game was over at that point, considering LSU’s struggles at the plate.
What does it mean? After suffering a heart-breaking loss on Friday night, the response was not what Johnson, and the coaching staff were looking for. My feeling heading into SEC play was that despite LSU’s struggles at the plate, they would be to stay in most games because of its starting pitchers. But Evans and Moore both struggled, the bullpen has been mostly ineffective, and the defense continues to have its issues.
This looked like a series that LSU could win, given Vanderbilt’s struggles in the non-conference. But now LSU will look to avoid the sweep when they wrap up the series in Nashville at 3 PM on Sunday. William Schmidt is set to pitch for the Tigers and the pressure is on for him to have a good start.