SATURDAY’S GAME: Tennessee 9, LSU 3

SUNDAY’S GAME: 2 p.m. / SEC Network

 

Tennessee righthander Marcus Phillips shut down LSU’s bats Saturday, but the Tigers were still alive until their own bullpen had a meltdown.

It was another verse of a recurring theme when Tigers pitching has gone awry — more trouble finding the strike zone.

The Volunteers took advantage of free passes to break open a one-run game with a six spot in the eighth inning and beat the Tigers 9-3 to even the Southeastern Conference series.

“They deserved to win the game tonight — all phases,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said.

It left LSU and Tennessee tied for third place in the SEC at 13-7 with the Tigers falling to 35-9 overall while the Vols are 35-8.

The largest crowd of the season, 13,376, showed up still buzzing from the opening game’s miracle comeback in a 6-3 walk-off victory in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

No such drama this time.

The game ended with freshman Derek Curiel on deck, his season-long, 43-game on-base streak broken by an 0-for-4 night.

LSU got a quality start out of Anthony Eyanson (6-2), but managed only one hit until the seventh when back-to-back solo home run by Steven Milam and Michael Braswell cut the lead to 3-2.

Then the Vols batted around in the top of the eighth and blew the game open with six runs.

“I love that we competed, you know, to get it to a one run game there in the seventh,” Johnson said. “We’re pulling every rabbit out of the hat we could for a while to try to keep it at a one run game.

“And … they got a couple guys on to start the eighth and made it really difficult.”

The Tigers didn’t help themselves with two hit batters and a walk — for the night LSU walked eight and hit three.

Chase Shores, who until last week was the Tigers’ Sunday starter, got the last two outs of the seventh inning. But the eighth-inning nightmare began when he promptly hit the lead off man.

Shores got the first out before a single and a walk loaded the bases, then he hit another batter to force in a run.

That brought on Cooper Williams, who got the second out on a strike out before giving up a two-run single, then the clincher  — a 3-run homer to Cannon Peebles.

“Tough one there,” Johnson said.  We played decent defense (but) other than that, they deserved to win from the batter box and from the pitchers mound.”

LSU other run came on another solo home run in the ninth by John Pearson, who was pinch-hitting for his older brother Josh.

Neither team was sure after the game who it will start Sunday in the rubber game.

“We haven’t made a final determination just yet,” Johnson said. “You want to be thorough about that. It’s a good lineup so you have to do everything you can to work around it.”

But Johnson does have his two best relief pitchers available after Zac Cowan (2-0, 1.18) threw only 13 pitches in Friday’s game while Casan Evans (2-0, 0.67) hasn’t thrown this weekend.

One of them will likely start with other on call.

Starting pitching wasn’t the problem Saturday.

Eyanson got some key outs to keep it close while giving up two runs on six hits while striking out eight.

“Anthony competed really well,” Johnson said.

Phillips was better, going 6 2/3 innings, not allowing a hit in the first four innings and shutting out the Tigers until the back-to-back home runs.

“Phillips was tough,” Johnson said. “The fastball is exploding above 98 (mph) and he didn’t seem like he ever missed over the middle of the plate.”

“Their pitching is the reason they’re the reigning (national) champs.”