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LSU’s Michael Papierski reacts after hitting a three-run home run against Oregon State during an NCAA College World Series baseball game Saturday, June 24, 2017, in Omaha, Neb. LSU won 6-1. (Ryan Soderlin/Omaha World Herald via AP)
OMAHA, Neb. — Paul Mainieri threw it out there strictly as a hypothetical, what he might have dreamed would happen Saturday.
“I could tell you I dreamed that Caleb Gilbert would give us seven shut out innings, one-hit ball,” he said in laying it out. “And that (Michael) Papierski was going to launch one out from each side of the plate and Beau (Jordan) was going to tomahawk a 97-mph fastball into the stands.”
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Dreamy stuff, indeed.
“But I’d be lying if I told you that,” Mainieri admitted.
Yet somehow the unlikely script all unfolded exactly the way he dared not imagine it.
The Tigers beat No. 1-ranked Oregon State for the second straight day, this time 6-1, and beginning Monday will play for the national
championship for the first time since winning their sixth College World Series title in 2009.
“There’s a lot of steak still to be eaten in this town,” Mainieri said.
“We’re not done yet,” said Jordan, who set up the first of Papierski’s home runs with a two-out double in the second and hit one of his own in the sixth.
Regardless of what happens this week, Mainieri said the last two days will go down in LSU baseball lore.
“We faced an unbeatable team these last two days,” Mainieri said, only slightly exaggerating about an OSU squad that had lost only four games before Friday’s 3-1 LSU victory.
“They had an amazing season, one for the ages … and we beat them two days in a row.
“They (OSU) don’t have any weaknesses. They pitched great. Great defense. Offensively, they had table-setters, power guys. But you still have to go out and play the game.”
“I felt good about my team, too. These last two games, we played good enough to beat them. They didn’t have to lose the games.”
Papierski’s three-run homer in the second inning was a catalyst, the first of two the switch-hitter bombed, one from each side of the plate.
It came after a two-out walk when Jordan, who would later hit a solo home run in the sixth, doubled down the leftfield line to keep inning going.
“And then Pap comes up and just destroys that ball,” Jordan said of the towering blast the cleared the bullpen beyond right field. “That just got things going. It was a big momentum shift in our dugout.”
“It loosened our team up totally,” Mainieri said.
“The wind helped a little bit,” Papierski said. “But that wasn’t the highlight of the game —it was Caleb Gilbert. He went out there … unbelievable.”
Gilbert, who’s not in the weekend rotation, was something of an emergency starter in the absence of injured Eric Walker.
“If you pitch well, you’ve got a chance,” Mainieri said. “It’s that simple.”
Mainieri was hoping to get five, maybe six innings out of him, and figure it out from there.
All Gilbert did was retire the first 10 batters he faced and cruise into the eighth inning with a one-hitter before the Beavers scored their only run on Michael Gretler’s solo home run with one out in the eighth.
Gilbert, exploiting the outside-friendly strike zone of home plate umpire Gret Street, set the tone with four of his seven strike outs in the first two innings, and allowed only two base runners before the Tigers fashioned a 6-0 lead.
“It’s a surreal feeling,” said Gilbert, who hadn’t pitched more than 5.2 innings before handcuffing the Beavers with 67 of his 97 pitches for strikes.
“Just fastballs away. Pounding the zone. The ump was giving me a little bit here and there … just really taking advantage of it and keeping them off balance.”
Gilbert never allowed a base runner with less than two outs through the first seven innings, taking the Beavers out of their aggressive running game.
Neither Steve Kwan or Nick Madrigal, who tortured LSU in the Beavers 13-1 win Monday, reached base against Gilbert.
“That was huge,” Gilbert said.
“One walk,” Mainieri said in amazement. “The key to stopping Oregon State was to keep those two guys off base … they’re not as scary when those two guys are off the bases.”
That aggressive style seemed to rattle the Tigers in the Monday debacle.
Saturday?
“Without getting the lead off man on it’s hard to do,” Oregon Stae coach Paul Casey said.
“They were coming right after us,” Oregon State’s Gretler said. “We were defensive, taking a lot of defensive swings. We didn’t put any pressure on them.”
LSU was the aggressor from the minute Papierski unloaded on the first of his home runs. He added one to leftfield in the fourth, and Jordan lined his shot in the sixth to put LSU up 6-0.
Jordan thought his table-setting double was bigger.
“Definitely. Early in the game and Pap followed it up with the big home run. It got things going, and once things got going, we didn’t stop.”
