BATON ROUGE -- Trying to rebound from an awful weekend against Notre Dame, the LSU Tigers were hoping to get a better performance out of their starting pitching and some great at-bats in certain situations when they hosted the No. 14 Texas Longhorns on Friday night.
It turned out that both of those areas were about as good as they could get, as the LSU took down Texas 13-4 in the first game of a weekend series.
Sophomore right-hander Zack Hess (1-1), who turned in a miserable outing last week that saw him enter Friday with an ERA north of 30, looked like he belonged in the Friday night role with six strong innings.
Against Notre Dame, LSU (3-2) hit less than .200 with two outs and with runners in scoring position. Friday, the Tigers excelled in both categories, going 8 for 17 with two outs and 8 for 19 with runners in scoring position.
“I just thought our guys were absolutely relentless tonight at the plate,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “We had so many great at bats.”
Leading the charge for LSU offensively was the bottom of the order. No. 7 hitter Bryce Jordan tied the school record with four walks, setting the table for Brandt Broussard and Hal Hughes, who combined to finish 6 for 9 with six RBIs.
LSU opened the game with three straight base hits, including a double by Austin Bain. By the time the bottom half of the first inning had come to a close, the Tigers had opened up a 5-0 lead.
Texas plated two runs in the second inning to cut into the LSU lead. But, the Tiger bats went to work once again in the bottom of the third when they knocked home three more runs on four hits, including a double off of the bat of Daniel Cabrera.
LSU struck again in the fourth inning by adding two more runs to their total. The final runs for the Tigers came in the bottom of the sixth, as LSU tacked on three more runs.
Texas finished their scoring in the bottom of the eighth, sending home two runs.
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TRACEY JAGNEAUX