LSU finishes sweep of Auburn
BATON ROUGE, La. – Freshman Eric Walker took a no-hit bid into the eighth inning, allowing only one run on one hit in eight innings of work, as the No. 11 LSU baseball team completed the series sweep against No. 14 Auburn 9-1 Saturday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.
With the win, LSU improves to 35-17 (18-9 Southeastern Conference), and Auburn drops to 32-21 (14-13 SEC)
Walker earned the win to improve to 6-1 this season. The right-hander walked three and struck out three in the outing.
LSU's Nick Bush and Caleb Gilbert combined to pitch the ninth inning and allowed only one hit.
Auburn starter Casey Mize suffered the loss after throwing four innings. The right-hander fell to 6-2 on the season after allowing five runs on six hits and striking out two.
The final home game of the season is against Northwestern State, Tuesday. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.
LSU jumped out to the 3-0 lead in the bottom of the second. First baseman Nick Coomes started the rally and led off the inning with a double to right field. Third baseman Josh Smith followed with a single to put runners on the corners, and designated hitter places a single through the right side to score Coomes. In the next at-bat, catcher Michael Papierksi dropped a sacrifice bunt, which drove in Smith and put Jordan on second with one out. After centerfielder Zach Watson singled through the left side, there were runners on the corners for Kramer Robertson who sent a sacrifice fly to right field to give the Fighting Tigers the 3-0 edge.
In the bottom of the fourth with Smith on second after a one-out double, Papierski hit his second home run of the series to give LSU the 5-0 lead.
The Fighting Tigers added three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to extend the lead to 8-0. After Smith took a leadoff walk, the third baseman advanced to second and scored on a sacrifice fly to left field by Jordan. With runners in scoring position, second baseman Cole Freeman sent what looked like a routine ball to right field, but it dropped down for a two run single.
In the top of the eighth inning with two outs, Auburn left fielder Sam Gillikin broke up Walker's no-hit bid and the shutout as he laced a ball over the left field wall.
LSU tacked on a run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Jordan scored from third on Robertson's groundout to third base after reaching earlier in the inning to make it 9-1 LSU.
Kentucky 8, Tennessee 3
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Riley Mahan continued his assault on Southeastern Conference pitching over the past two weeks, belting two home runs to lead No. 8 Kentucky to an victory over Tennessee on Senior Day at Cliff Hagan Stadium.
The Wildcats will go for a series sweep today as they continue to hunt the Southeastern Conference crown.
Missouri 5, South Carolina 3
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou junior pitcher Tanner Houck turned in his first complete game of the year as he helped Mizzou Baseball even its series with South Carolina with a win at Taylor Stadium.
Houck struck out a season-high 10 batters while scattering just five hits and three runs to earn his first win since March 17 at Alabama. He got five runs of support Saturday; the most Mizzou's offense has given him in Southeastern Conference play this year.
Mizzou goes to 30-21 this year and 10-16 in SEC play while South Carolina goes to 30-20 and 12-14 in SEC play. Houck is now eighth on Mizzou's all-time career innings pitched list with 296.1 while his 288 strikeouts are the fourth-most in program history and second among three-year players, trailing only Kyle Gibson (304). The complete game is Houck's first since May 19 at Kentucky last year.