BATON ROUGE -- A night of weird baseball, struggling aces and offenses squandering scoring opportunities unfolded Friday at Alex Box Stadium, where LSU defeated Arkansas 5-4.
Razorbacks starter Dominic Taccolini and counterpart Alex Lange worked through trouble to keep the game close, and a strange triple play prevented Arkansas from seizing command in the fifth inning.
LSU (29-16, 12-10 SEC) grabbed control with a three-run sixth inning when Taccolini and reliever Barrett Loseke struggled, which was enough cushion for Lange and the Tigers' bullpen to secure the team's first series-opening victory in four weeks.
Arkansas' swoon reached four games in a row and 12 losses in the past 15 conference games.
"We gave it to them," Hogs Coach Dave Van Horn said. "In that inning they scored three runs on a couple of hits, we hit a guy, walked a couple, walked two in. We had three or four wild pitches, they stole three or four bases on us. They scored a run that one inning and didn't get a hit. They didn't even make contact. That's kind of rare."
Down 2-1 in the fifth, the Razorbacks (26-20, 7-15) pulled even on the first two pitches of the inning. Jake Arledge poked a soft liner to left-center field and legged out a double. He raced around easily when Tucker Pennell lined a pitch through the middle on the first pitch he saw.
Cody Scroggins dumped another single over the infield, and Lange hit Eagan to load the bases with no outs. A big Arkansas inning unraveled on one swing of the bat.
Carson Shaddy, who doubled in his first two at-bats, hit a line drive at shortstop Kramer Robertson, who fielded the ball on one hop. He threw home for the force out, and catcher Jordan Romero threw to third base to get Scroggins.
The second base umpire ruled after the play that Robertson caught the ball on the fly, and Scroggins was out trying to advance to third. The Tigers appealed to third base that Pennell had not tagged up, in which the third base umpire concurred for the third out to complete the triple play.
"The call there in the fifth was a fiasco," Van Horn said. "I mean, just make a call. Throw the arm out. Nobody knew what to do. We didn't see the arm go up, and that's the disappointing thing. If he calls him out, at least we know what to do. Probably still going to get a double [play] out of it, but at least we've got another swing."
Added Shaddy, "I thought he caught it; that's why I stopped running. It was just a messed up play. It's crazy how the game of baseball will treat you sometimes."
Beau Jordan hit a leadoff single to begin LSU's three-run sixth. Taccolini walked Greg Deichmann, and Bryce Jordan singled to left to load the bases. Loseke relieved Taccolini and walked Cole Freeman and Duplantis on full-count pitches to force in two runs. Fraley's sacrifice fly off James Teague scored the third run of the inning.
Eagan pulled the Razorbacks to within 5-3 with a leadoff home run in the eighth. LSU closer Hunter Newman survived a wobbly ninth inning for the save despite a wild pitch that scored a run and put the potential tying run at third base, but Eagan flied out to center to end the game.
"We did everything we could to hang in the game," Van Horn said. "We didn't particularly do anything very well. We had bases loaded and no outs and our best hitter at the plate. We kept fighting. We hung in there and gave ourselves a shot in the ninth."
Arkansas grabbed an early 1-0 lead when Eagan led off the game with a single to right field followed by Shaddy's first double that put runners on second and third. Luke Bonfield's RBI groundout to second scored Eagan.
LSU went to work in its half of the first. Antoine Duplantis hit a tapper to the right side that Taccolini fielded but Eagan couldn't pull in at first base for an error. With Duplantis running, Jake Fraley laced a single to center field to put Tigers on the corners. Kramer Robertson's groundout to shortstop scored Duplantis with the tying run.
Fraley scored on a Taccolini wild pitch with one out in the third to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.
Sports on 05/07/2016