LSU baseball beats Texas A&M to advance to SEC semifinal
LSU baseball beats Texas A&M to advance to SEC semifinal
After waiting all week to play in the SEC Tournament, the Tigers finally got to play on Friday night as they took on Texas A&M, looking to enact some revenge after losing the series to them earlier in the season. The Tigers got that revenge with a 4-3 win to advance to the conference semifinals.
LSU, as the higher seed, was the home team in this one, and the Tigers got on the board early as Ethan Frey hit an RBI double to right field that got lost in the sun and scored Derek Curiel and advanced Jared Jones to third. Luis Hernandez would then groundout to short but that out was productive as it scored Jones to make it 2-0 Tigers.
The game remained 2-0 until the bottom of the third inning when Frey hit a two-run bomb to increase the LSU lead to 4-0.
In the top of the fourth inning, Texas A&M started to mount a comeback as they scored two runs against Kade Anderson to cut the lead to 4-2. That was as close as the Aggies could get until the top of the sixth inning when a sacrifice fly trimmed the lead to 4-3. That is when the craziness set in.
In the top of the seventh inning, Jay Johnson went to the bullpen and Anthony Eyanson came out. Eyanson is the Tigers' Saturday starter, so why would he be pitching in this one? It's because Johnson wanted to secure the win.
The first hitter he faced roped a triple to center field as Chris Stanfield made a diving attempt to catch it but came up short. The Aggies then laid a bunt down, and the run would score, and after the ball got away on the throw to first, the batter went all the way to third. We were tied 4-4 with the go-ahead run on third for the Aggies.
Coach Johnson would then challenge runner interference at first base, claiming that the runner was still in the baseline as he ran to first instead of being out of the baseline and allowing Jones to make a play. With the newly implemented double base at first, many people thought this would no longer be an issue. We were wrong. After review, it was called interference, and the run did not count. LSU kept a 4-3 lead, and the runner had to go back to third. Eyanson then got the Tigers out of the inning unscathed.
We have not even talked about how great Anderson played in this one. He finished the night after six innings, and he gave up three runs on four hits, 12 strikeouts, and a walk. LSU was unable to score in the bottom of the seventh or eighth innings, and we headed to the top of the ninth with the Tigers clinging to a one-run lead.
Eyanson struck out the first two hitters he faced before walking the next guy to put the tying run on first. A single then put the tying run on third base and the go-ahead run at first with two outs. A groundout to Steven Milam would end the game as the Tigers advanced to the semi-final Saturday with a 4-3 win.
LSU will play against Ole Miss tomorrow. That game will start 30 minutes after the Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt game ends.
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