Tigers will need a Plan B on the mound in rubber match

BATON ROUGE — Nothing, apparently, is going to come easy for LSU baseball this season.

The Tigers didn’t have much go right Saturday night, least of all any late-inning magic in them this time as lowly Alabama coasted to a 6-1 victory to even up the SEC series.

“Just one of those nights,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “Many of the issues were self-inflicted, especially early on the mound when we walked and hit batters.”

So, after the high of Beau Jordan’s eighth-inning grand slam that keyed LSU’s 7-5 comeback victory Friday night, the Tigers will have to win on Senior Day today to avoid losing the series to Alabama, which could be costly in their quest to reach the NCAA tournament.

The Tide (26-26, 7-19) came to Baton Rouge having been swept in three of its last four conference series and entered Saturday losers of of 12 their last 13 SEC games.

But they’ll get a rubber match with the Tigers today.

“If we want to hold out hope for an NCAA bid, tomorrow is probably a must-win game,” Mainieri said. “We have to win this series at home.

“We’ve got to put this one behind us. We’ve got to come out and play better.”

It got tougher still when Mainieri learned that LSU’s projected Sunday starting pitcher, AJ Labas, won’t be available due to shoulder soreness.

“We’ll have to figure something else out for tomorrow,” Mainieri said.

He was leaning toward Nick Bush (0-1, 3.41), who’s had an up and down season out of the bullpen.

But while the Tigers needed four pitchers to finish Saturday’s frustrating game, Bama’s early lead kept Mainieri from wasting the choice parts of his bullpen.

“We have enough for tomorrow,” Mainieri said. “We’ve got (Matt) Beck and (Todd) Peterson, Devin Fontenot will be available again.

“If Bush can go out there and give us three to five innings, we’ll be pleased.”

Not much pleased him Saturday.

Ma’Khail Hilliard, arguably LSU’s most consistent starter, had the roughest outing of his freshman season while struggling to throw strikes and the Tigers fell behind early after the Tide put up four runs in the second inning.

Hilliard lasted only three innings while allowing five runs on four hits and -— more damning —  five walks and two hit batters, including one with the bases loaded.

All told, LSU pitching combined to issue 10 walks, hit two more batters and, for good measure, was called for two balks (both of which Mainieri argued but said he never got a satisfactory explanation for).

Still, the often-shaky LSU bullpen gave LSU six innings of work while allowing only one run. 

The damage was already done as Hilliard had only his second really bad outing of the season and the Tigers didn’t have much to show for Mainieri thought were at lot of good at-bats

“Normally Ma’Khail has good command, but tonight he was off,” Mainieri said. “He never got to use his curve ball because he couldn’t command his fast ball.”

Four of the five runs he allowed came with two outs, including Cobie Vance’s two-run homer in the fourrun second. 

Cam Sanders pitched in and out of trouble but gave LSU three scoreless innings before also giving up a two-out run in the seventh.

LSU managed only five hits, but the Tigers had enough base runners to hit into four double plays in the first five innings — two hit by Zach Watson, and one each by Antoine Duplantis and Jake Slaughter, probably the Tigers’ three fastest runners.

“Every single one of them the ball was smashed,” Mainieri said. “We just smashed so many balls and it seemed like everything was hit right at them. It kept us from putting anything together.”

The double plays allowed veteran Alabama starter Jake Walters (3-5) to pitch eighth innings and keep LSU  away from the Tide bullpen that they feasted on in Friday’s comeback.

“Our kids were hitting the ball hard, we just an awful lot of bad fortune,” Mainieri said. “Credit their infielders, who seemed like they made so many good plays, and their pitcher that kept throwing the ball over the plate.”