LSU sends MSU home in an SEC tourney win called because of 10-run rule
No extra innings were required for LSU-Mississippi State, Part Deux, in a loser-leave-Hoover Southeastern Conference tournament Friday night matchup.
Or even nine innings.
The fifth-seeded Tigers sent the fourth-seeded Bulldogs home with a rousing 12-2 win in a game that was called after seven innings because of the 10-run rule at Hoover Met Stadium.
LSU (37-23) scored all of its runs in the third and fourth innings and used superb pitching from three hurlers to advance to Saturday’s semifinals against top-seed and regular season champion Vanderbilt (47-10). Start time is approximately 3:30 p.m.
The Tigers, which didn't play Vandy this season, haven't faced the Commodores in the SEC tournament since 2014. That's when LSU opened the tourney with an 11-1 win over Vandy and went on to win the tournament.
LSU advanced to the tourney semifinals for the seventh straight season, hammering 12 hits off six MSU pitchers for an impressive victory that should clinch an NCAA regional host spot for the Tigers. LSU now has three wins this season over MSU, a team projected as a national top 8 NCAA tourney seed.
With the tournament winding into day four, the Tigers and Bulldogs’ fifth meeting of the season was supposed to be a battle of pitching attrition. LSU used 11 hurlers (including two pitchers twice) in its first three tourney games and State employed eight in two tourney contests.
While LSU was running extremely low on starting pitchers – it went with stopgap senior starter Clay Moffitt – MSU was able to throw freshman J.T. Ginn, a starter in the Bulldogs’ regular season SEC series rotation.
It was LSU on March 29 that handed Ginn his first loss of the season in a 10-5 Tigers’ victory. Ginn went five innings, allowing six runs on nine hits while striking out nine and walking two.
This time around, Ginn didn’t make it out of the third inning and neither did Moffitt, but his first two scoreless innings were huge for the Tigers.
“A.D. (pitching coach Alan Dunn) told me `don’t hold anything back, let it rip from the beginning’,” said Moffitt, who threw 44 pitches allowing one hit in 2.1 innings. “I knew I had to set the tone early and put up some zeroes.”
In LSU’s half of third, the Tigers sent 11 batters to the plate for a 5-0 lead. Ginn was rocked for all the runs on four hits, including RBI singles by Josh Smith and Antoine Duplantis and an RBI double by Brandt Broussard.
The Tigers should have had more runs, but State reliever Tyler Spring got the final two outs with the bases loaded.
In the Bulldogs’ half of third. Moffitt was yanked after issuing consecutive one-out walks. He was charged with allowing two runs when State tagged LSU reliever Aaron George with RBI singles by Tanner Allen and Dustin Skelton.
MSU felt it also should have scored more runs, but George wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam by striking out Josh Hatcher and getting Jordan Westburg to hit a force out grounder to Tigers’ shortstop Smith.
LSU’s response in the fourth inning was one of its best offensive outbursts of the season, a seven-run, six-hit explosion. The Tigers marched 12 batters to the plate forcing three MSU pitching changes.
LSU didn't score again, but neither did the Bulldogs. George, 3-1 after being credited with the win and Chase Costello combined to blank MSU in the last 4.2 innings by scattering five hits.