LSU rallies for victory

Published 6:55 pm Sunday, February 25, 2018

BATON ROUGE — Right-hander Caleb Gilbert surely can’t say his LSU teammates don’t have his back.

The Tigers pitcher was roughed up for the second time in as many starts Saturday night, but LSU’s offense came alive to wipe out a five-run deficit and the bullpen came on for five innings of shutout relief as the Tigers rallied for an 10-5 victory over Texas.

LSU (4-2), which beat Texas 13-4 on 16 hits Friday night, can get the series sweep when the two teams meet again at 1 p.m. today. The game was moved up an hour earlier due to the threat of rain.

Last week in the season opener against Notre Dame, Gilbert gave up six runs in four innings and left trailing 6-0 before the Tigers rallied for a 7-6 victory.

On Saturday he was lifted after giving up a home run by Zach Zubia to lead off the fifth, the Longhorns’ third home run against him, for a 5-0 Texas lead.

But, aided by some sloppy Texas defense, LSU came back again with five runs in the bottom of the fifth to tie the score, and got two go-ahead runs in the seventh on a wild pitch that scored Nick Webre and Brandt Broussard’s RBI single that brought home Bryce Jordan.

Daniel Cabrera added a solo home run in eighth for the Tigers and Jordan added a two-run single for more insurance, his third hit of the game.

Taylor Peterson (1-0), the first of four Tiger relievers, got the win. He was followed by Matt Beck, Nick Bush and Austin Bain.

Gilbert was probably fortunate to get out of his 4-plus innings on five runs after giving up 10 hits with two doubles to go along with the three home runs and a lot of loud outs.

LSU was hitless until Beau Jordan’s fourth-inning single, and nothing came of it.

But the comeback began on Jordan’s one-out single if the fifth, the first of seven hits in the Tigers’ five-run inning to tie the score.

Jordan took second when center fielder Duke Ellis bobbled the ball.

That was the lone error Texas was charged with in the inning, but the Longhorns had reasonable chances to make plays on Hal Hughes bouncing double that drove in one run and Ellis had settled under what was ruled a two-run double by Bain off his glove at the warning track.

It also kept the inning alive for Antoine Duplantis’ RBI triple and Hunter Feducia’s RBI single that tied the score.

Beau Jordan also singled in the inning, but was ejected by first base umpire Ryan Morehead for an obscene gesture apparently directed toward Shugart, a Bridge City, Texas, native who played travel ball with Beau and Bryce in their younger days.