The LSU Baseball team entered Tuesday Night expecting to pick up a win over Northwestern State before moving onto the weekend. Leaving Tuesday Night, the LSU Baseball team got a serious wakeup call as a winnable game became a stunning defeat as the Tigers were mercy ruled by Northwestern State.
After Jaden Noot quickly shut down the Demons in the top half of the inning, the Tigers quickly went to work as Derek Curiel blasted a solo home run to right centerfield. In the bottom of the second, LSU would make it 2-0 on a solo shot by Josh Pearson.
The game would then enter rain delay and when the team's returned to the field, the momentum was completely flipped. The Demons pushed across 6 runs in the third inning making LSU pay for walks and errors along the way. In the 4th inning, another error would make it 7-2 Northwestern State as the decision to start Jared Jones at third base was clearly not the right choice.
In the bottom of the 5th inning, Jake Brown would draw LSU one run closer with the Tigers third solo home run of the day but, it wasn't nearly enough.
The Demons would push another three runs across in the 6th and again in the 7th while keeping the Tigers off of the scoreboard to win 13-3 mercy ruling the Tigers.
The loss isn't a massive deal if the Tigers are able to respond correctly this weekend against Tennessee as this is a wakeup call. The pitching staff gave Northwestern State 8 free passes while making 3 errors which isn't a winning recipe for any team. The Tigers didn't use any of their elite arms in this game but, one of these younger pitchers needs to step up and make themselves a reliable option with the postseason around the corner.
The Tigers offense struggled a bit to get anything consistent going leaving 8 runners on base with the only runs coming on solo home runs.
The LSU Baseball team now has to snap back into focus as the weekend brings a top ten showdown against the Tennessee Volunteers.