LSU played Saturday night like a bunch of caged Tigers eager to hunt for prey after a seven-hour weather delay to the start of their NCAA Super Regional opener vs. Kentucky.
Boosted by an Alex Box Stadium crowd of 12,452 worked into a fever pitch by the time LSU starting pitcher Paul Skenes fired the first throw of a 101-pitch masterpiece, the No. 5 national seed Tigers belted a season-high six home runs as they rolled to a 14-0 victory over the 12th seeded Wildcats.
"The stars of the delay are those fans up there in the purple and gold," LSU second-year coach Jay Johnson said. "They didn't get discouraged or distracted by it (the delay). They showed up in a big way. The loudest I've ever heard this stadium is when we took the field for the first inning tonight. That was special."
LSU (47-15) is one victory away from winning its ninth Super Regional title and advancing to the College World Series in Omaha for the 19th time. Game two vs. UK (40-20) on Sunday is set for 5:06 p.m. on ESPN2 with Ty Floyd as the Tigers’ likely starting pitcher.
"Coach (Johnson) talks about the standard of winning," said Skenes, the SEC Pitcher of the Year and a Golden Spikes Award finalist who improved to 12-2 in his 10th and final home start of his one LSU season after transferring from Air Force. "It's a cool opportunity, but we've obviously got to come out (in Sunday's game 2) and execute and we gonna have a cool team trip to Nebraska."
Just as LSU did in its regular season series opener vs. UK when the Tigers hit three homers in a 16-6 run-rule win in eight innings, LSU again showed no mercy from the jump against UK pitching.
The Tigers busted Wildcats’ starter Zack Lee for five homers in the first five innings.
First baseman Tre’ Morgan belted solo shots in the first and third innings, third baseman Tommy White cracked a two-run round-tripper in the third and second baseman Gavin Dugas and left fielder Josh Pearson hammered solo dingers in the fourth and fifth inning respectively.
Pearson’s lead-off homer started a five-run rally that gave LSU an 11-0 lead. White then collected his second homer, a solo moon shot over the left field scoreboard in the bottom of the sixth.
In last week's Baton Rouge Regionals, Morgan (.213, 3 for 14, 1 RBIs, two strikeouts) and White (.231, 3 for 13, 2 RBIs, four strikeouts) had the lowest batting averages among the LSU starters.
They flipped those numbers immediately against Kentucky.
Morgan was 4 for 5 with 3 RBIs and the second multi-home run game of his three-year career. White, the sophomore transfer from North Carolina State who's third in the nation in RBIs (now at 96), was 3 for 5 with three RBIs and had his fourth multi-homer game of the season.
"Last week, I struggled at the plate because I felt I was a little antsy," Morgan said. "I was hitting to the oppo (opposite) field like I usually do, I was pulling off of balls. I worked in the (batting) cage seeing the ball and taking it deeper. I even took it into the game."
The Tigers have hit 15 homers in their last three games, bringing their season total to 132 for the season. It surpasses the 1996 Tigers' national championship team for third most homers in a single season
Saturday’s game was supposed to start at 2 p.m. Johnson made it clear on Friday that after the Tigers went through two sizeable rain delays in last weekend’s Baton Rouge Regionals that extended the tourney to Monday, he wanted the NCAA Super Regional on-site coordinator to do everything possible to play Saturday’s game in an uninterrupted window time.
So, when there supposedly was a predicted threat of rain, the game was postponed to 7:06 p.m. After no rain all afternoon, skies grew ominous with dark clouds at about 6:30 p.m.
The announcement was made the game was being pushed to an 8:06 p.m. start. But the teams never took the field and light rain showers began at 8:08 p.m and ended 15 minutes later.
Finally, just past 8:30 p.m., it was announced the game would start at 9:06.
"As you get older and coach, you only focus on things you can control," Johnson said. "When they tell us we can play, we play and we'll play hard. A really good job by the (game operations) administrators in terms of communicating with both head coaches.
"I was very comfortable with process of what happened. This is as a professionally-run tournament as there is in college athletics."
Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione, one of Johnson's closest friends in the coaching business, said he had no problems why the the NCAA made repeated decisions to delay the start of the game.
"Weather is going to be whatever it is and we're going to trust whoever makes the calls," Mingione said. "We're going to live with it.. We're not going to point fingers or make excuses. You don't get to this spot by allowing yourself or your players to make excuses. We don't do that. Kentucky Wildcats don't do that."
Skenes said he went home during the five-hour delay, checked on his dog, ate some food and returned to the stadium where he warmed up a second time.
He was thoroughly ready in a rare payback situation.
Back in April in the Tigers’ series-opening 16-6 run-rule win over UK, he gave up what remains season-highs of five runs and seven hits in six innings. The Wildcats directed a lot of trash talk at Skenes during that 111-pitch outing.
There was no chirping this time around. Skenes, who delivered a complete game 7-2 win last weekend over Tulane in the Baton Rouge opener, threw 6.2 shutout innings vs. the Wildcats.
He allowed four hits including three singles, struck out nine and walked one before being relieved with two outs in the UK eighth by Blake Money. Money finished the shutout with 1.1 flawless innings.
"I don't know if I had any extra motivation," Skenes said, "but we had a previous game (his April game vs. UK) to go off of and we definitely had more data. We had a really good plan."
Even after waiting most of the day, Skenes retired UK’s first 15 of 17 batters through five innings on 56 pitches. He allowed a third-inning infield single and a fifth-inning single to shallow center field that dropped in safely after Crews arrived a step late after slipping at the start of his pursuit.
The only time UK got two runners on base against Skenes was in the sixth inning. With Wildcats on first and third base with one out, he snuffed the rally by striking out UK center fielder and then catcher Devin Burkes.
"He was up to 102 miles an hour and he threw more off-speed pitches than he did last time," Mingione said. "Let that sink in. So he made the adjustment and we didn't."
Mingione started right-hander Lee, who was the Wildcats’ third-game pitching starter in most of UK’s SEC weekend series.
Lee also started the second game of the Lexington Regional last weekend in a 5-3 loss to Indiana and was the losing pitcher in a seven-inning stint. He also gave up three runs and four hits in a 32-pitch, 1.1 innings relief performance in UK’s 7-6 game three loss to LSU in April.
That was mild compared to the battering the Tigers gave him this time around. He gave up nine runs on nine hits that included almost a half-dozen home runs.
LSU’s three players at the top of its batting order – Crews, White and Morgan – combined for nine of the Tigers’ 15 hits, seven of LSU’s 13 RBIs and eight runs.
But afterwards as the clock struck midnight, Morgan was already turning the page.
"We're going to wake tomorrow and today means nothing," Morgan said. "We're going to go out there and win one pitch a time, that's our motto. We know what the end goal is and we're not worried about the result."
Mingione knows his team will come out fighting in game two. Not only did UK win the Lexington Regional coming out of the losers' bracket, but the Wildcats beat LSU 13-10 in the second game of April's regular season series after LSU won the opener by 10 runs. LSU won the third game 7-6 to win the series.
"Last time we were here, it was the same thing with a very similar (first-game) outcome when we didn't play our best," Mingione said. "We came out the next day and played exceptionally well and had a chance to win on Sunday.
"Obviously, there's a lot at stake tomorrow. But we've been here before."
