Marceaux pitches LSU to series victory

Published 6:00 pm Saturday, May 18, 2019

BATON ROUGE — For a team short on pitching, LSU seems to be holding up just fine.

Freshman Landon Marceaux was the latest to step forward in the final regular-season series as he stymied Auburn on two hits in seven innings while the Tigers won 5-1 to clinch the Southeastern Conference series.

LSU (34-21, 17-12 SEC) bolstered its case to host an NCAA Tournament regional in two weeks and could a make a stronger case by completing the sweep beginning at 2 p.m. today.

LSU head coach Paul Mainieri did not announced a starter for the final game, in which the Tigers will face Auburn sophomore right-hander Tanner Burns (4-3, 2.83 ERA), who is projected as a top-10 pick in next year’s amateur draft.

Something like what Marceaux and Eric Walker have delivered against Auburn (31-23, 13-16) would suit LSU fine.

LSU started the weekend’s scoring with five consecutive in singles in the third inning of Thursday’s 7-1 LSU win. Auburn has four hits in two games after Marceaux followed Eric Walker’s Thursday performance with a gem of his own.

LSU’s Zack Hess pitched two perfect innings to finish the game.

Marceaux gave up a single on the game’s first pitch, but quickly erased that with a double play and retired the next 11 batters as he faced to see the minimum through four innings.

The only other hit he allowed was the first pitch of the fifth, Will Holland’s towering home run to dead center field.

Marceaux promptly retired the next nine batters to depart after seven innings on 92 pitches.

He faced one over the minimum in his seven innings while not walking a batter with seven strikeouts.

LSU, which had eight hits, broke through in the fourth after Antoine Duplantis singled and Daniel Cabrera walked, followed one out later by Hal Hughes’ single to load the bases. Cade Beloso was hit by a pitch to get LSU’s first run in, followed by a wild pitch for another.

Red-hot Saul Garza and Josh Smith hit back-to-back RBI singles to put the Tigers up 4-0.

LSU added a run in the eighth on Beloso’s RBI single to score Chris Reid.By Scooter Hobbs

shobbs@americanpress.com

BATON ROUGE — For a team short on pitching, LSU seems to be holding up just fine.

Freshman Landon Marceaux was the latest to step forward in the final regular-season series as he stymied Auburn on two hits in seven innings while the Tigers won 5-1 to clinch the Southeastern Conference series.

LSU (34-21, 17-12 SEC) bolstered its case to host an NCAA Tournament regional in two weeks and could a make a stronger case by completing the sweep beginning at 2 p.m. today.

LSU head coach Paul Mainieri did not announced a starter for the final game, in which the Tigers will face Auburn sophomore right-hander Tanner Burns (4-3, 2.83 ERA), who is projected as a top-10 pick in next year’s amateur draft.

Something like what Marceaux and Eric Walker have delivered against Auburn (31-23, 13-16) would suit LSU fine.

LSU started the weekend’s scoring with five consecutive in singles in the third inning of Thursday’s 7-1 LSU win. Auburn has four hits in two games after Marceaux followed Eric Walker’s Thursday performance with a gem of his own.

LSU’s Zack Hess pitched two perfect innings to finish the game.

Marceaux gave up a single on the game’s first pitch, but quickly erased that with a double play and retired the next 11 batters as he faced to see the minimum through four innings.

The only other hit he allowed was the first pitch of the fifth, Will Holland’s towering home run to dead center field.

Marceaux promptly retired the next nine batters to depart after seven innings on 92 pitches.

He faced one over the minimum in his seven innings while not walking a batter with seven strikeouts.

LSU, which had eight hits, broke through in the fourth after Antoine Duplantis singled and Daniel Cabrera walked, followed one out later by Hal Hughes’ single to load the bases. Cade Beloso was hit by a pitch to get LSU’s first run in, followed by a wild pitch for another.

Red-hot Saul Garza and Josh Smith hit back-to-back RBI singles to put the Tigers up 4-0.

LSU added a run in the eighth on Beloso’s RBI single to score Chris Reid.