Hale storm leads LSU to weekend sweep of Mizzou

Published 10:15 am Monday, May 11, 2015

BATON ROUGE — Longstanding baseball tradition insisted that Conner Hale lead off the bottom of the 10th inning for LSU Sunday afternoon.

Recent history suggested that was good news for the Tigers.

“I’m starting to embrace those situations,” Hale said.

“He’s one of the most clutch hitters I’ve ever had,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “I can’t imagine how many clutch hits he has had.”

But first Hale used his glove to get the Tigers out of a precarious top of the 10th, snagging a bases-loaded, one-out chopper, stepping on third base and firing to first for the inning-ending double play.

So of course ­— doesn’t it always happen? — he led off the bottom of the inning and responded with a 2-strike single and eventually scored on Jake Fraley’s poke through a drawn-in infield to give the No. 1-ranked Tigers a 6-5 victory and a weekend sweep of Missouri on Senior Day.

“I knew I was going to third (for the force out), my momentum was taking me that way,” Hale said of the defensive gem. “Once I touched third and saw the throw was on a good line, I was pumped up and ready to go end the game.”

The Tigers are now 5-4 in extra inning games, winners of 4 of the last 5.

“We’ve had so many close games and extra inning games,” Mainieri said. “It’s good that we were able to finish the job today.

“We get the walk-off at home, another extra inning game. Now it’s on to next week.”

The sweep — the Tigers third in conference play but the first at home — left LSU (43-8, 19-7) with a 1 1/2-game lead over Vanderbilt in the overall SEC standings and a 2-game lead over Texas A&M in the West Division.

Russell Reynolds (5-0), LSU’s sixth pitcher of the day, got the win. He came on with two on and no outs in the top of the 10th, gave up a sacrifice bunt for the first out, intentionally walked a batter to load the bases then induced the ground ball that Hale turned into a double play.

Hale, who also had a pair of RBI singles, started the rally with his third hit of the day, while fellow senior Kade Scivicque also had three hits, including a follow-up single in the 10th that advances Hale to third.

Another senior, Chris Chinea, also had a pair of RBIs, including his team-leading ninth home run to put LSU up 5-4 in the sixth.

That held up until the ninth when Mizzou (28-24, 14-13) pushed across a freakish run that began with a squibber to second.

It was going to be a tough play at first, but Missouri’s Zach Lavy ende up on second when Danny Zardon muffed it into short right field. Lavy tied the game on Shane Bene’s double.

Otherwise, LSU’s bullpen was the game-saver.

Senior Kyle Bouman got the start but lasted only one-third of an inning while allowing Missouri to match its previous run total for the weekend on a walk, a single and Josh Lester’s 3-run homer.

Bouman went 2-0 on the next batter before Austin Bain came in and promptly struck out the first six batters he faced.

“Bain was tremendous,” Mainieri said of the freshman’s eventual seven strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings of work, marred only by a solo home run by Missouri’s Ryan Howard.”

But the 3-0 deficit was the eighth time in nine games LSU allowed an opponent to score first.

“We’ve been falling behind in so many games lately that we don’t really flinch if we fall behind by three runs,” Mainieri said. “The way we were swinging the bats, we felt like we were still going to be in the game. We just needed some quality at-bats.”

LSU got two runs in both the fourth and fifth innings despite having a runner thrown out on a hotly disputed play at the plate to end the fourth and a runner picked off first in the fifth.

LSU head coach Paul Mainieri (AP Photo)

Vasha Hunt