LSU pitchers get second straight shutout in 2-0 win over South Alabama
For the second consecutive night, LSU was able to shutout its opponent behind stellar pitching, this time on a night where runs were hard to come by, beating South Alabama 2-0.
Sophomore Ma’Khail Hilliard took the mound Wednesday night and looked the part that earned him a starting spot in the weekend rotation last season. After five dominant innings from Clay Moffitt on Tuesday, Hilliard was able to pick up where Moffit left off, lasting three innings with five strikeouts.
Hilliard retired the first nine batters of the game, striking out five of them on a new and improved cut fastball that reached in excess of 87 mph. The red hot sophomore was replaced in the fourth for Matthew Beck as coach Paul Mainieri wants to save him for the weekend series against No. 14 Texas A&M.
Hilliard said that’s the best his arm as felt since the Auburn series of his freshman year, where he went toe to toe with eventual No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize.
“The ball came out nice and I was just letting it rip,” Hilliard said. “I had figured coach wanted to use me for the weekend so that was a good choice. As a staff, we’re just throwing strikes now and once we got back to our normal selves, we just let the defense do the work.”
“It’s hard to lose when you don’t give up any runs,” Maineiri said. “Tonight the plan was pretty much executed to perfection by those kids. This is a ball club that scored 15 runs last night against a great Southern Miss team so our guys pitched tremendous baseball tonight.”
Two more scoreless innings from Beck brought Trent Vietmeier to the mound in the sixth who was able to evade the first run of the game after a leadoff single.
It took three innings for LSU to find its first hit and even longer to scrape together a run. The Tigers looked to have something going in the fifth innings with runners on first and second with two outs but a popout from senior Brandt Broussard ended the threat.
Broussard would more than make up for it with an impressive over the shoulder grab that saved the first run of the game from coming across in the sixth.
When LSU was getting on base, it was often shooting itself in the foot as the Tigers were thrown out on three different occasions while trying to steal second base.
In the seventh inning, the Tigers were able to put enough together as a one out single from Cade Beloso followed by a walk to Brock Mathis put runners at first and second. After the runners advanced on a groundout from Broussard, Antoine Duplantis stepped to the plate with two outs and delivered an infield single, bringing Beloso home and giving LSU the 1-0 lead.
Duplantis moved into fifth place on the LSU all time hits list, passing Blair Barbier with 308 career hits.
“I check swung for whatever reason and I think it ended up working out,” Duplantis said of the go ahead hit. “I didn’t do it purposely but if I had hit it harder and it might’ve been tougher for me to get to the bag.”
The one run was all LSU needed as Todd Peterson and Devin Fontenot came in too close the last six outs of the game.
LSU will now prepare for another top-15 team when Texas A&M visits Baton Rouge for a three game series starting Friday.