LSU bats heat on a nippy night for a 9-2 win over Holy Cross
On a chilly Wednesday night in Alex Box Stadium when the biggest cheer may have been the P.A. announcement that LSU’s 10th ranked basketball team won in overtime at Florida, the 10th ranked baseball Tigers eventually heated their bats for a 9-2 non-conference victory over Holy Cross.
A four-run LSU fifth inning when nine batters cracked three hits, drew three walks and got hit by a pitch broke open a one-run game and snapped 9-3 LSU’s three-game losing streak after being swept by then-No. 16 Texas this past weekend in Austin.
Seven LSU pitchers combined to limit the lightweight hitting Crusaders (1-11) to just three hits, one of which was a first-inning solo homer. Holy Cross entered Wednesday’s game batting .198.
“After they made the announcement about the final score in basketball and got a charge out of the crowd,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said of LSU’s fifth-inning rally, “it seemed like the next pitch (Daniel) Cabrera got that two-run base hit. That was pretty cool.”
LSU, which saw its team batting percentage drop almost 50 points after being dominated by superior Texas pitching, had nine hits including three homers off six Holy Cross pitchers.
Three Tigers – left fielder Cabrera, first baseman Cade Beloso and catcher Brock Mathis – had two hits each.
Cabrera, who went 2-for-4, produced three RBI on a solo homer in the fourth and a two-run single in the fifth. It was his fourth homer of the season, tying right fielder Antoine Duplantis for the team lead. Duplantis hit his fourth on a solo blow in the LSU first.
“He (Duplantis) hit two home runs the last three years, I can’t let him beat me,” Cabrera said with a laugh. “We joke around that every time I hit one he hits one and every time he hits one I hit one.”
Mathis, sporting a .172 batting average penciled as the 9-hole hitter, went 2-for-2 including his second homer of the season.
“I just started going to the plate not being as tense, just being loose, just understanding this is the same game I’ve been playing since I was eight years old,” Mathis said of his sudden plate success.
With LSU set to host Cal for a three-game series starting Friday and the start of SEC play just more than a week away, Mainieri continued his mid-week, early-season game trait of lineup tinkering and using a parade of pitchers.
He rested shortstop Josh Smith, the Tigers’ leading hitter at .452, who has a slight hamstring pull. Second baseman Hal Hughes moved to shortstop, freshman Drew Bianco got his first start at second base and took over Smith’s spot as leadoff in the batting order.
Also, senior Chris Reid, who went 3-for-6 and scored two runs in two games this past weekend when Tigers got swept at Texas, started his second straight game at third base.
Then, there was Ma'Khail Hilliard, getting his first start on the mound since last May 23 when he allowed four runs and seven hits in 4.2 innings as the losing pitcher in a 4-3 SEC Tournament decision to defending national champion Florida.
So how did all Mainieri’s lineup adjustments work out?
Hughes, who went for 0-for-2 at the plate drawing two walks, was a mixed bag. He committed a two-out fielding error in the second inning that allowed Holy Cross to score the go-ahead run for a 2-1 lead. He atoned by leading off the LSU third with a walk and scoring the tying run at 2-2 on left fielder Zach Watson’s sacrifice fly. Then, he got thrown out at the plate in the Tigers’ fifth trying to score from second base on a Watson single.
Bianco and Reid had nondescript performances, going a combined 0-for-4.
Hilliard, still battling back from arm problems that sidelined him for last season’s NCAA Tournament, had a two-inning pitch limit against the Crusaders and didn’t even make it that far.
He lasted just 1.1 innings, allowing two hits and two runs (including Holy Cross right fielder Ben Malgeri’s first-inning solo homer). He struck out two and was yanked after issuing two straight one-out walks in the second inning to the Crusaders’ 6 and 7-hole hitters Alex Gionis and Kellen McCormick who entered the game batting .156 and .160 respectively.
Though Hilliard declared after the win that “my arm is fine,” Mainieri noted Hilliard’s velocity hasn’t been where he’d like it to be.
“The two walks in the second inning were disconcerting,” Mainieri said. “I told him (Hilliard) yesterday if you don’t throw strikes you’re not going to pitch.”