Tigers Rally Back to Beat Bama 12-8

Another SEC series victory for the good guys

Thanks to some late inning bombs by Hayden Travinski and Jared Jones, LSU (33-8, 14-5) overcame a 6-1 deficit to defeat Alabama 12-8 (30-14, 9-11).

After having maybe the greatest performance of his LSU career last weekend, Ty Floyd, unfortunately, came crashing back down to Earth. Floyd was chased after two-and-a-third innings where he surrendered six runs. Floyd issued four walks and gave up a leadoff homer three pitches into the game.

LSU climbed back into the game in the bottom of the third inning when Tommy White Tommy Tank’d a three-run homer to right field, cutting Alabama’s lead to 6-4.

Alabama was able to get a run back in the top of the fourth, and that’s when LSU made its push. Trailing 7-4, LSU would score a combined eight runs in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings.

With runners on the corners and no outs in the home half of the sixth inning, Cade Beloso brought home Dylan Crews with a single to the right side of the infield. And stop me when you’ve heard this before, but with LSU down two, Hayden Travinski hit the go-ahead three run homer to left field.

Travinski’s only hit two homers this year: last week’s three-run, ninth inning shot against Ole Miss, and tonight against Alabama.

In the seventh inning, Beloso would score Crews a second time this time by way of a perfectly placed safety squeeze bunt. That pushed LSU’s lead to 9-7.

Alabama was able to make things interesting in the eighth inning. Nate Ackenhausen began the inning and was pulled after retiring the one and only batter he faced for Gavin Guidry. Guidry gave up hits to the only two batters he faced and was pulled for Riley Cooper. Cooper allowed a run to score via wild pitch to bring score to 9-8 LSU and he also failed to record an out.

That brought on Thatcher Hurd who inherited runners on first and second with just one out, but Hurd rose to the occasion, striking out Dominic Tamez and forcing Will Hodo to fly out to right field. Hurd would finish the game off and is credited with a five-out save.

Hurd got some extra run support in the bottom of the eighth inning. Bear Jones hit his 13th homer of the season to push LSU’s lead to 11-8, and Dylan Crews scored Gavin Dugas with an RBI single to make the game 12-8.

LSU is still undefeated in SEC series this season, with six wins and the 1-1 split against South Carolina. At 14-5 in conference play, LSU is two-up on Arkansas (14-7) in the loss column for first place in the SEC West, and is just a half game behind Vanderbilt (15-5) for first place in the conference as a whole.

LSU will try to make it two consecutive SEC sweeps Sunday afternoon at 1:00 P.M. Christian Little will get the Sunday start once again, and the game may be streamed on SEC Network+.