BATON ROUGE, La. – LSU, the defending national champion, used a four-run sixth inning to upset top-ranked Texas A&M 6-4 in the opener of their Southeastern Conference baseball series Friday night at Alex Box Stadium.
LSU (30-17, 8-14) took a 6-3 lead in the sixth on four hits, a hit batter on an 0-2 pitch and two Aggie errors. Josh Pearson’s two-run double, Hayden Travinski’s sacrifice fly and Steven Milam’s RBI single plated the runs. Ashton Larson opened the inning with a single and Tommy White reached on throwing error by third baseman Gavin Grahovac trying to retire Larson at second. A&M lifted starting pitcher Ryan Prager for Josh Stewart, who faced only Jared Jones, who had a single to load the bases. Kaiden Wilson also faced only one batter, Pearson.
LSU’s other runs came in the second as the Tigers cashed a pair of full-count walks. LSU failed to bunt the runners into scoring position, but Larson singled to load the bases. White reached on a fielder’s choice, scoring a run. The second run came on the play on a throwing error by Grahovac.
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A&M (39-7, 15-7) scored in twice as many innings as LSU, but could manage only one each time. Sophomore Jace LaViolette hit a homer in the first and junior Ali Camarillo hit one in the second and another in the fourth, giving him six for the season. A&M’s last run game in the eighth on singles by Jackson Appel and Hayden Schott along with a throwing error.
A&M outhit LSU 11-7, but left eight runners on base as the Aggies were 2 for 9 with runners in scoring position. A&M lost the series opener for only the second time with the other being the league opener at Florida, which then won the series, the only one the Aggies have dropped.
LaViolette had three hits, including his 24th homer, while Camarillo and Appel each had two hits. Grahovac, who didn’t play in Tuesday’s victory over Tarleton, extended his hitting streak to 13 games.
Prager (8-1) suffered his first loss, allowing four runs in five innings but only two were earned. He struck out five and walked two.
A&M junior right-hander Brad Rudis replaced Wilson and pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only one hit.
Larson, Jones and Milam each had two hits for LSU, which has won eight of 10.
“I’m really proud of our team,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said on the school’s website. “I think the story of the night is that there were a lot of things that went wrong for us in the game, but the team showed tremendous poise, and that’s a really good step in the right direction. We’ve had to grow through some of the struggles of this season, but sometimes when things are the messiest, that’s when you develop the most, and hopefully we’re seeing the fruits of that right now.”
A trio of LSU pitchers combined for eight strikeouts and no walks, though starting pitcher Gage Jump hit three batters. He went 5 1/3 innings, allowing six hits and three runs, all earned. Fidel Ulloa (1-1) worked 1 1/3 innings allowing one hit. Griffin Herring was touched for four hits in 2 1/3 innings, but he allowed only one run in earning his fourth save. He struck out Braden Montgomery looking to end the game with two runners on.
Game 2 will be at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.