LSU rallies back to beat Miss. State is SR opener

BATON ROUGE — Almost all of LSU’s big-time postseason runs seem to have a game like this.

At some point all hope seems lost. Nothing is going right. The baseball gods almost seem annoyed at the Tigers.

And then with just the slightest seemingly innocent nudge, Alex Box Stadium explodes and — bam — the Tigers are back from the dead, the crowd gets into a feeding frenzy and the Tigers, oh, do something really crazy like rally for four runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to beat Mississippi State 4-3 in the opening game of the NCAA super regional.

Something like that.

“It’s a game we’ll never forget in these parts,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said after the Tigers (47-17) ran their winning streak to 15 games. “I’ll be talking about this game 10 years from now.”

Yet for most of the night he and the Tigers were the picture of frustration, apparently hell-bent only on wasting a gem of a start by Alex Lange in his final appearance in The Box.

Mississippi State ace Konnor Pilkington was just as good for most of the night.

But it can be a simple thing like a leadoff walk, as happened this time when LSU’s Kramer Robertson drew one on five pitches to open the decisive bottom of the eighth inning.

Leadoff walks are baseball no-nos, but they’re not supposed to sprout the seven plagues of Egypt.

Or, as Lange put it:

“Once Kramer walked, it was like the gates of hell were unleashed.”

Or at least it must have felt pretty close to that to Mississippi State.

“The offense clicked and they were ready to go,” Lange added.

LSU, which spent the first seven innings hitting into three double plays while wasting three different opportunities with runners on second and third with one out, suddenly, out of nowhere, put together four straight hits — half the Tigers’ total for the night — and capped the four-run rally with Michael Papierski’s no-doubter of a go-ahead sacrifice fly to deep center field.

Cole Freeman followed Robertson’s walk with a line drive out, but Antoine Duplantis kept it going with a single before Greg Deichmann’s opposite field double gave the Tigers their first two runs of the night.

Freshman Zach Watson — “I’m telling you, he’s special,” Mainieri said — promptly yanked a single down the leftfield line to score Deichmann with the tying run and Beau Jordan then singled to right to advance Watson to third, still with one out.

Mainieri pulled Papierski aside before he went to the plate.

“I told him this was his moment, it was his time,” Mainieri recalled, and Papierski delivered with a towering fly that allowed Watson to trot in easily with the winning run.

There was the requisite ninth-inning drama, with State getting a leadoff single and planting Elijah MacNamee at third with two outs against freshman reliever Zach Hess.

But, with SEC player of the year Brent Rooker on deck, Hess struck out  Hunter Stovall on three pitches, the last two clocking in at 96 mph.

“I didn’t know he could throw that hard, he was like a bull out there,” Mainieri said of Hess, who got the final out of the eighth in relief of Lange before talking Mainieri into letting him have the ninth. “He was all fired up. I just couldn’t the ball away from him.”

The classic comeback left LSU one victory from heading to Omaha for the College World Series.

“They usually get to enjoy a victory until midnight,” Mainieri said right as the clock struck 12. “Since it’s so late I told them they could enjoy it until they went to sleep. But when they wake up … all the focus is on tomorrow’s game.”

LSU will send lefthander Jared Poché (10-3, 3.13) to the mound for today’s 8 p.m. game.

Mississippi State, whose pitching gets much dicier after Pilkington, isn’t sure who it will pitch, but head coach Andy Cannizaro said it will be either Denver McQuary (3-3, 4.67) or Jacob Billingsly (2-3, 4.67). Both are righthanders.

Poché and the Bulldogs’ TBA will have a tough act to follow, even though neither Lange or Pilkington figured into the decision.

“Alex Lange was sensational tonight,” said Cannizaro, who spent the previous two years on Mainieri’s staff with the Tigers.

Cannizaro figured his Bulldogs probably blew it when they scored just one run in the first inning when there was the opportunity for more.

Two walks and a bloop single loaded the bases for Mississippi State with one out and Lange promptly hit Jake Mangum to force in the game’s first run.

But Lange, who finished with 10 strikeouts, struck out the next two batters and didn’t allow another hit until the eighth inning.

“We had him on the ropes, so to speak,” Cannizaro said. “But we score (only) one run. Bases still loaded, one out. With (Lange) you have to get them early or you’re not going to get them.

“If you let him off the hook early, he’s going to be standing out there in the eighth or night inning.

“You saw the greatness of Alex Lange,” Mainieri said. “He’s done it so many times. Strikes out two batters to get out of a jam, keeps us in the game, then mows them down for six innings.”

On problem, though.

LSU wasn’t have much more luck with Pilkington, though not for lack of opportunities.

“He was pitching his butt off,” Deichmann said. “Locating his pitches, keeping us off balance. We did hit some balls hard, but he pitched great.”

The biggest tease came in the fourth when the Tigers got runners to second and third with one out after singles by Duplantis and Watson, with Watson taking  second on the throw to third.

But after Jordan popped out, Josh Smith hit a bomb to rightfield, that brought the capacity crowd to its feet, only to let out a groan State’s Hunter Vansau caught with his back against the outfield wall.

“I thought sure we had a three-run homer,” Mainieri said.

The Tigers  ran themselves out of an inning in the sixth, after Papierski led off with a double.

He was sacrificed to third, but when Kramer Robertson hit a chopper down the third base line, he got caught in no-man’s land and was easily tagged for the second out.

An inning later Jordan led off with a single and Josh Smith followed with a walk.

After they were sacrificed to second and third, Jake Slaughter hit a high fly ball to shallow center.

The Tigers gambled, sending Jordan on the play and he was tagged out by inches.

The play was reviewed but the call  held up on instant replay.

“It was so frustrating,” Mainieri said, “because I knew we were facing a good pitcher and weren’t going to get a lot of opportunities.”

Lange lasted until the eighth when Cody Brown’s two-out, two-run double put the Bulldogs up 3-0 and brought on Hess.

The way things were going, it looked like a 10-spot.

“Kramer and I walked up to each other right then in the eighth and said everybody needs to breathe,” Deichmann said. “We need to take a step back and relax. There is no need to press. We’ve been in these situations, we’ve been in worse situations, and we’ve pulled through.”””<p>LSU pitcher Alex Lange walks off the mound in the second inning of an NCAA college baseball tournament super regional game against Mississippi State in Baton Rouge, La., Saturday, June 10, 2017. </p>AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

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