Looking to bounce back from a three game debacle over the past weekend, the Tulane baseball team took on the defending national champion LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge Tuesday night. The bounce sort of came, but the Wave couldn't overcome ineffective pitching and a lack of early hitting in a 13-6 loss to the Bayou Bengals. The defeat drops the Wave to 23-27 on the year with LSU improving to 29-21 for the season.
A harmless single in the top of the 1st and second frames is all Tulane could manage early.
Meanwhile, the Tigers scored five runs in the bottom of the first before the Green Wave could collect an out. LuisPablo Navarro got the start on the mound for the Wave, threw 18-pitches, walked two and gave up a homerun without registering an out. Navarro was pulled in favor of Jack Brafa, who promptly gave up back-to-back doubles and a single before that first out occurred. LSU batted around in the first, taking almost a half-hour before mercifully ending with a Tiger 6-0 lead.
Looking almost like a batting practice session early, LSU batters were battering every arm put on the mound by Tulane for the first two innings, scoring another three runs in the second while falling just one man short of batting around again in that frame. Tulane pitchers didn't record their first strike out until the bottom of the third and accounted for only three Ks in the game. Coach Jay Uhlman went through ten pitchers in the contest, the most in a game by the Green Wave this year. The Tigers combined for a total of 16-hits given up by Wave arms.
Tulane batters made a game of it in the middle innings, scoring five consecutive runs over the third, fourth, and fifth frames, including a Jason Wachs run-scoring double to score Tanner Chun from 1st in the third inning, Johnny Elliott's double scoring James Agabedis and Kaikea Harrison's two-bagger that plated Elliott, both in the fourth frame, and a two-run homer by Jason Wachs with Tye Wood on base via a walk in the fifth, shortening the LSU lead to a 9-5 advantage.
The Tigers answered, though, scoring in the bottom of the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings, the latter a two-run monster homer over the video board in left center field.
The Wave scored another time in the top of the eighth when 2nd baseman Nate Johnson hit his own shot over the same aforementioned video board for a solo home run. The Green Wave ended up with eleven hits on the night.
Tulane is back in Uptown this weekend for their home-closing series against South Florida.
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