Bottom of lineup saves LSU
Published 4:24 pm Saturday, June 3, 2017
BATON ROUGE — Whatever becomes of LSU’s postseason, wherever it ends up, Friday’s 15-7 win over Texas Southern won’t be in the photo album.
There are a lot of things to say about it, but — by last count — LSU head coach Paul Mainieri and several players repeated the same mantra over a dozen times.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” Mainieri said after the Tigers overcame five errors and a handful of mental mistakes to eventually coast into the winners’ bracket of the NCAA Tournament regional.
“And that we won,” he added. “At least we won.”
It certainly wasn’t an artistic success.
“I know I’m being too negative,” Mainieri said. “We won the game. But I just know we can play better and will play better.”
The Tigers will surely need to do just that at 7 p.m. today when they get the winner of Friday’s late Rice-Southeastern Louisiana game in the key game of the regional.
Texas Southern plays the loser of Friday’s late game in an elimination game this afternoon.
LSU will have ace Alex Lange (8-5, 2.59 ERA) on the mound.
“Hopefully he’ll pitch deep into the game,” Mainieri said, who added the Tigers will have plenty of bullpen despite using more of it than planned Friday.
Friday the bottom of the Tigers’ batting order eventually proved to be too much for Texas Southern (20-33), which came in with the worst record in the tournament.
Louisiana State’s Zach Watson hits a 3 run home run in the bottom of the 2nd inning during the NCAA Baseball Regional Tournament in Baton Rouge on Friday afternoon.
