Another masterful Poche effort

Published 5:44 am Sunday, February 26, 2017

It was inevitable. Every 15-16 innings or so, LSU left-hander Jared Poche was going to give up a hit.

Funny thing is, when Saturday’s LSU-Maryland game began, I was most interested in the first two innings.

If Poche got through those first two hitless, the reasoning went, at least it would be a nice retort to any seamhead purists who wanted to minimize his no-hitter of a week ago against Army because it was “only” a seven-inning game.

Mission accomplished.

Then came the third inning. Still no more Maryland hits than Army got a week ago.

And the fourth, the fifth, too. Then the sixth … and the seventh, which held so much drama a week ago to seal the deal.

Finally, a hitless eighth, uneventful at that.

What … is he going to no-hit the season?

The game otherwise wasn’t doing much on the suspense barometer.

The Tigers led 11-0 after three innings, and a few fans started getting an early start on the exits — a lot of them hustled back as the hitless innings piled up.

It was a game verily screaming for a mercy rule after seven innings, but those delicacies have to be agreed upon in advance. Last week mercy wasn’t in the equation — it was because Friday rains forced a Saturday doubleheader.

So Poche had to go all the way to the ninth with a chance at a second consecutive no-hitter.

He worked the count full, before giving up an infield single.

The Poche hitless streak ended at 15 innings.

It’s dangerous to start assuming baseball records. There’s not much that hasn’t happened somewhere, sometime, somehow.

But NCAA Stats, Inc., might have to throw some extra logs on the computer search engines.

It’s hard to believe anybody has ever started a season anywhere north of Little League by throwing 15 consecutive no-hit innings.

“I don’t really know how to explain it,” Poch? said afterward. “Obviously I have a lot of luck on my side right now.”

Actually, he didn’t need much luck.

For those eight innings, the only defensive play with any real degree of difficulty was backup outfielder Zach Watson’s running, over-the-shoulder catch in deep center for the final out of the seventh inning.

As for luck, the ninth-inning hit by Maryland’s Zach Jancarski wasn’t much of a hit, but clearly a clean single.

It was a bouncer up the middle that shortstop Josh Smith — normally the third baseman — got to just behind the bag and made a throw on, but with no real chance to get a leadoff hitter streaking down the line.

Don’t anguish over a fill-in shortstop being there. Yeah, maybe — just maybe — Kramer Robertson could have pulled some of his magic.

But Smith, a shortstop by trade, will likely start at the spot next year and in fact made a Kramer-worthy play later in the inning to keep LSU’s third shutout in seven games intact.

So close.

Poche is the biggest story in this young season, but his teammates may soon forget his name.

Given baseball’s long-standing late-inning protocol for budding no-hitters, it seems like his fellow Tigers are never allowed to speak to him — or get near him in the dugout, for that matter — after the opening innings.

At this rate, LSU might have to construct a solitary confinement booth at the end of the dugout — call it the Poche Room.

The oddity was that Poche made the final out for the Tigers,

Coach Paul Mainieri’s bench-clearing substitutions with a huge lead worked out to where, once DH Jordan Romero took a spot in the field, the pitcher had to take a spot in the batting order.

It probably didn’t occur to Mainieri that that might still have to be Poche, in the leadoff spot, with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and with the nervous crowd itching for the top of the ninth.

Mainieri, vying for spoilsport of the year, thought about pulling Poche, no-hitter intact, after seven innings.

Pitching coach Alan Dunn talked him out of it, and in truth Poches pitch count, even for so early in the season, was fine, right at 90 entering the fateful ninth.

So Mighty Jared, who’d nibbled at the edges of the plate all day, finally strode to the plate in the bottom of the eighth with bat in hand and … well, not exactly prepared to deliver a might whack.

It was, in all likelihood, the loudest pre-at-bat standing ovation in history for a player with no career hits (or plate appearances).

We learned that Poche, the epitome of that baseball cliche the “crafty left-hander,” is right-handed when taking cuts himself.

Still no word on what his swing looks like.

Obviously on strict orders from headquarters, Poch? dug in seemingly about 10 feet off the plate and tried not to chuckle as Maryland reliever Jamal Wade wised up to the ploy and managed to get three strikes over.

To that point, Maryland’s hitters might as well have taken the same, resigned approach to hitting as Poch? did.

The Terrapins had as many hits while flailing away in good faith as Poch? did grinning sheepishly at four pitches, the bat never nudging from his shoulder.

They would get the measly one to deny Poch? a spot in history.

Oh, but he flirted with it.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com