LSU Chokes Away Game One Against South Carolina

Worst loss of the season

Sorry for the delay, I needed to sleep away the disgusting feeling the LSU baseball team gave me last night before collecting my thoughts.

The quote/unquote No. 1 team in the country absolutely gagged away game one of the South Carolina series 6-5 Thursday night at Founder’s Park. The Gamecocks scored three total runs in the eighth and ninth innings to overcome a 5-3 deficit and won via walk-off wild pitch thrown by Zac Cowan.

Things appeared promising early on for LSU as the Tigers struck for two runs in the first inning when Daniel Dickinson hit his ninth home run of the season to put LSU up 2-0. But, as we’ve seen so many times this season, pitching from guys not named Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson doomed LSU.

LSU elected to pitch off Thursday night and gave the start to Conner Ware, and in hindsight Ware’s first batter faced should have been a sign of things to come.

Ware not only hit the first batter he faced, he hit him with his very first pitch of the evening. Ware would only give the Tigers three outs before being pulled for Jaden Noot, but not before he walked the bases loaded in the second inning. In total Ware faced seven Gamecock batters and handed out five free passes: four walks and the HBP.

Noot did a good job of limiting damage in the second inning. Carolina had the bases loaded with nobody out, but could only push one run across thanks to a sac fly.

Noot was pretty much flawless coming out of the pen and retired the first 12 batters he faced. Noot wouldn’t allow a base runner until the sixth inning when he gave up a single and then a triple that scored Carolina’s second run of the night. Noot was pulled for Chase Shores who, once again, was effective coming out of the pen. Shores didn’t allow a run over the course of the two innings he pitched.

But while Noot and Shores threw up four zeros over the course of five innings, LSU’s offense stalled out. The Tigers only scored one run from the second through seventh inning, with the biggest offense coming in the fifth inning.

LSU was able to score a run in the fifth, but they could have had done so much more damage had it not been for two different base running miscues. Michael Braswell tried to go first to third but was out after sliding off of the bag; two batters later after Bear Jones singled, but Derek Curiel was also thrown out trying to go first to third and for reasons that remain unclear did not try sliding in to the bag.

Carolina tied the game at 3 in the bottom of the sixth, but LSU was able to respond with a pair of runs in the eighth inning. Steven Milam hit a sac fly to score Daniel Dickinson to break the tie, and then Michael Braswell—going up against his former team—delivered what should have been the insurance to make it a 5-3 game. Braswell had a big night against his previous school, going 3-3 with an RBI, a double, and drew a walk.

Despite all the headaches, things were breaking for LSU as well as they could have hoped. LSU had a 5-3 lead going into the eighth inning so naturally Jay Johnson turned to Zac Cowan to try and close things out. Cowan, however, continued his downward trend and blew the save opportunity.

Cowan gave up a run in the eighth inning to make it a 5-4 game, and then in the ninth gave up a first-pitch home run to freshman KJ Scobey that tied the game. Cowan then gave up a triple and hit a batter to put runners on the corners; he got Nathan Hall to line out to Bear Jones for the second out, and LSU elected to intentionally walk Henry Kaczmar to load the bases and set up a force out anywhere on the diamond. Instead, however, Cowan threw his wild pitch on the first pitch of the at bat to Cayden Gaskin to lose the game.

There ain’t anyway to sugarcoat this or put any kind of positive spin on this result: this was a heinous choke job against a historically bad South Carolina team, and it’s the kind of loss that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in LSU as postseason play looms.

While LSU is a near lock to be a top-8 seed, it’s not a guarantee just yet and if the Tigers do end up losing this series, I’m not so sure they’ll be one. To make matters worse, LSU’s now 17-11 in SEC play and their grip on a double-bye for next week’s SEC Tournament is starting to slip. The Tigers are in a three-way tie for third place with Vanderbilt and Georgia, and are only a game up on Auburn and Tennessee. If LSU ends up dropping another game this weekend, there’s a chance they’ll head to Hoover needing a win to lock up a top-8 seed.

All of LSU’s fatal flaws were on full display Thursday night: bad base running, hitting .250 with runners in scoring position, and while Zac Cowan has been excellent for the bulk of the season, he’s regressed as of late.

In his last four outings, Cowan is 1-3 with a 12.35 ERA and a 2.74 WHIP. In 5.1 innings he’s given up 11 hits, seven earned runs, and has been taken deep twice. Now thankfully Noot and Shores have been pitching well lately to somewhat offset Cowan’s struggles, but Cowan’s supposed to be your closer and lately he’s let go of the rope more often than not.

The good news for LSU is they still have Kade Anderson ready to go tonight and Anthony Eyanson set for Saturday. The bad news is LSU has to win these next two games and they’ll need Anderson and Eyanson to pitch deep into their starts because they’ve used up their best bullpen arms. Noot threw 55 pitches and is done for the weekend; Shores and Cowan threw 31 and 34 pitches respectively so they could maybe give LSU something on Saturday, but they’ll have to figure something out tonight after Anderson leaves the game.

Game two of this series is set for 6:00 P.M. and it may be streamed via SEC Network+.