LSU baseball team takes series sweep over Kentucky

Published 6:00 pm Monday, March 18, 2019

Staff Reports

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BATON ROUGE — Chris Reid and Antoine Duplantis drove in a pair of runs apiece and four LSU pitchers stymied Kentucky as the Tigers beat the Wildcats 7-2 Sunday to complete a three-game sweep of the SEC opening series.

The Tigers (15-5, 3-0SEC ), who beat the Wildcats 2-1 in 12 innings and 15-5 in taking both games of a Saturday doubleheader, are one of four teams unbeaten in SEC play after the first weekend, including Auburn and Arkansas in the West division.

Sunday LSU broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth on Zach Watson’s RBI single, followed later in the innning by Reid’s two-run single to put the Tigers up 4-1.

The Tigers added three more in the seventh, two of them when Duplantis smoked a triple off the right field wall to score Watson and Josh Smith. Duplantis then scored on a ground out.

“That was a really big at-bat for Antoine,” LSU assistant coach Nolan Cain said. “We were thinking about possibly bunting there, but Antoine hits a ball off the wall, and if the wind is not blowing in, that’s his sixth homer of the season. The thing about Antoine is that he’s going to have deep at-bats, and once he sees a pitch a couple of times, he’s going to be on it.”

LSU, which came into the weekend with question marks in its pitching rotation, got its third straight stellar performance.

Starter Eric Walker allowed one run on three hits and struck out five in 4.1 innings.

Matthew Beck (2-0) followed and earned the win after blanking Kentucky over 2.1 innings, walking one and striking out three.

Ma’Khail Hilliard allowed one run on one hit while walking two and Todd Peterson closed it out, working 1.1 innings with a walk and two strike outs.

“Eric’s fastball command has been really good,” said Cain. “He was spotting the fastball, getting some swingand-misses by elevating the fastball when hitters were expecting a breaking ball or a change-up.

“Beck has one of those fastballs that hitters don’t see very well,” Cain said. “He’s got a lot of deception in his delivery, he stands 6-7, so there’s a lot coming at the hitters. The biggest thing about Matthew is that he competes and you feel really good when the ball is in his hand.”

Nicholls at LSU, 6:30 p.m.