Jake Brown Homers Twice as LSU Run-Rules Arkansas

The ole “walk off dropped third strike” play

For the second time on Saturday, the LSU baseball team walked it off against Arkansas and won a crucial late-season series.

After LSU beat the Hogs 5-4 in extra innings—a game that ended at around 1:16 A.M. Saturday morning—the Tigers thoroughly dominated Arkansas 13-3 Saturday evening behind two home runs from Jake Brown and a dominant outing from Anthony Eyanson.

Eyanson picked up right where he left off last weekend against Texas A&M and threw six scoreless innings. Eyanson only gave up five hits and struck out 11, and had double-digits Ks for the fifth time this season. Not only that, but Eyanson didn’t give up a single extra base hit against what’s arguably the best offense in the entire country.

“A couple of things stand out to me about Anthony,” Jay Johnson said. “He is an intense competitor, so there’s always a way out with him no matter how tough the predicament. He’s also executing all of his pitches all of the time now, so it’s really hard to feel convicted in the batter’s box against him.”

While Eyanson had Arkansas flummoxed, the LSU bats teed off on Razorback pitching from the jump. Derek Curiel led the game off with a single up the middle and that ended up being a precursor for things to come. Two batters later, Jake Brown launched a three-run home run to give LSU a 3-0 lead.

“Jake is a great athlete who can excel at many different skills,” Johnson said. “He had a great at-bat in that first inning against a really good pitcher. (Arkansas starter Gage Wood) made a mistake, and Jake didn’t miss the pitch.”

Eyanson went three-up, three-down in the second inning to get the Tiger offense back up at the plate, and freshman catcher Cade Arrambide wasted no time upping LSU’s lead and led off the inning with a solo home run to make it a 4-0 game.

Arrambide, who once again caught Eyanson, had his best outing of SEC play with a 3-4 day at the plate, with that homer and also scored a pair of runs.

In the third inning, Brown went deep for a second time with a rocket to right field to push LSU’s lead to 5-0. The good people over at LSU Baseball Data clocked this one at 428 feet with an exit velocity of 107 MPH. Brown ended the day going 3-4 and set a new career-best with five RBI.

Arkansas had a chance to make things interesting in the fourth inning, but Eyanson would be able to throw up a zero. The Hogs had the bases loaded with just one out and superstar shortstop Wehiwa Aloy coming to the plate, and Eyanson struck out the likely SEC Player of the Year. He also struck out right fielder Logan Maxwell to end the threat and escape with the 4-0 LSU lead in tact.

In the home half of the fourth, LSU would also load the bases but the Tigers would only bring one runner home when Ethan Frey drew a two-out walk to score Chris Stanfield and gave LSU a 6-0 lead.

The LSU avalanche came in the fifth inning when the Tigers scored six runs. Michael Braswell walked to lead off the inning, and Arrambide followed with his second hit of the night. A wild pitch advanced the runners 90 feet and Stanfield hit a sac fly to right to bring Braswell home and make it a 7-0 game.

Curiel and Jared Jones drew back-to-back walks to reload the bases when Daniel Dickinson hit into a fielder’s choice that allowed Arrambide to score and make it an 8-0 game. The play resulted in Jones being out at second, but Arkansas second baseman Cam Kozeal was unable to make the throw over to first for the second out.

Brown collected his third hit and fifth RBI of the night with a single up the middle to make it a 9-0 game, and that’s when Ethan Frey hit the exclamation point with a three-run home run to give LSU a 12-0 advantage.

LSU was completely dominant and thoroughly excellent for 99 percent of Saturday’s game. The one percent that they weren’t, however, came in the top of the seventh inning when the Tigers had a chance to end the game early.

Jay Johnson elected to go to his bullpen to get the final three outs, but instead Arkansas plated three runs to extend the game. Mavrick Rizy was the first reliever out of the pen and gave up a lead off double, a walk, and then an RBI single to make it a 12-1 game. Rizy was pulled after allowing all three batters faced to reach base for DJ Primeaux and he too was ineffective. Primeaux gave up a run-scoring single to the one and only batter he faced to make it a 12-2 game, and Johnson went to the pen for a third time that inning.

Johnson called on Jaden Noot and he was able to get all three outs, but not before allowing a sac fly that cut LSU’s lead down to 12-3 and extended the game into the home half of the seventh.

LSU was, however, able to preserve the run-rule victory and did so in maybe the dumbest, most unorthodox way possible: a walk-off dropped third strike.

…sure! Why not?

Dumb ending aside, Saturday was about as impressive an outing LSU’s had all season long and the Tigers have for all intents and purposes locked up a Top-8 seed. At 40-11 overall and 17-9 in the SEC, it would take a complete collapse for LSU’s path to Omaha not run through The Box.

LSU will try and complete the sweep Sunday afternoon, with first pitch scheduled for 3:00 P.M. Freshman righty Casan Evans figures to get the Sunday start, while Arkansas has yet to name a starter.