LSU defeats Tulane, 7-2, in opening game of Baton Rouge Regional

LSU benefits from Paul Skenes’ performance on the mound and “small ball” to defeat Tuane.

In the opening game of the Baton Rouge Regional, fifth-seeded LSU defeated Tulane.

LSU (44-15) will advance to the next round where it will face the winner of Oregon State and Sam Houston tomorrow at 8 p.m. CT while Tulane (19-41) will face the loser tomorrow at 2 p.m. CT.

LSU head coach Jay Johnson was very pleased with the way his team came out and performed to start postseason play.

“I mean, it’s good baseball is what it was,” said Johnson. I mean, a couple of sacrifice bunts, a couple of sacrifice flies, two ground balls to the middle of the field with a man on third with less than two outs. These are things that we’ve done well, honestly, but it gets overshadowed because you’ve got seven guys with 10 or more homers. And we walk a ton and those types of things

LSU starter Paul Skenes (11-2) picked up the win. Skenes pitched the entire game, allowing two runs on seven hits while tossing 12 strikeouts on 124 pitches, the highest pitch count of his career.

“He’s the best pitcher in college baseball,” said LSU head coach Jay Johnson. “We’re now in postseason play and we felt really good about what he could do today and impact us winning the game.”

Skenes’ complete game left an impression on Tulane head coach Jay Uhlman as he saw his outing as a sign of respect towards his team.

“The fact they ran Skenes out for 120+ pitches and didn’t go to their bullpen against us— I’d like to take that as a measure of respect,” said Tulane head coach Jay Uhlman.

Tulane starter Dylan Carmouche (5-9) was charged with the loss. Carmouche hurled from the mound for four innings and allowed six runs on nine hits with two walks and two strikeouts.

LSU drew first blood when catcher Hayden Travinski lined an RBI double to left-center field to give the Tigers a 1-0. after Crews and third baseman Tommy White singled earlier in the inning.

In the second inning, LSU would extend its lead to 3-0 after an RBI groundout from Brayden Jobert and an RBI double from Dylan Crews.

LSU would score three more runs when third baseman Brayden Jobert would pick up an RBI groundout in the third and two RBI sacrifice flies from second baseman Gavin Dugas and left fielder Josh Pearson.

Tulane would try to make a late charge in the seventh when Tulane designated hitter Brennan Lambert would send a two-run dinger over the wall to cut into LSU’s lead to make the game 6-2. Lambert’s home run was his 10th of the year.

LSU would score its seventh run of the game to account for the final margin of the game after Travinski picked up his second RBI of the game after getting walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth.