BATON ROUGE — Ryan Theriot’s RBI triple broke a 2-2 tie in the fifth inning, and LSU southpaw Lane Mestepey continued his phenomenal freshman season with his first career complete game as LSU defeated Kentucky, 6-2 in the opening game of a three-game Southeastern Conference series Friday night at Alex Box Stadium.
The seventh-ranked Tigers (20-7-1, 7-3) and Wildcats (12-16, 2-8) resume their series Saturday evening at 4 p.m.
Due to a change in Kentucky’s travel plans, the time for the series finale has been moved up 90 minutes to 11:30 a.m. after originally being scheduled for 1 p.m., a change that was made less than an hour before Friday’s first pitch. The Wildcats’ connecting flight from New Orleans to Atlanta is scheduled to depart at 5:30 p.m. CDT, and with approximately 80 minutes needed to commute from the LSU campus to New Orleans International Airport, there was a great probability that an official game would not have been completed under the original schedule. No new inning will start after 3 p.m. in Sunday’s game.
LSU was caught in the same bind earlier this month in a game at Arizona State, as that contest ended tied at 5-5 after eight innings.
Theriot’s hit put the Tigers ahead for good at 3-2 with two outs in the fifth, as he plated Ray Wright, who had singled one batter earlier.
Mestepey, who took a shutout into the ninth inning last Saturday at Mississippi State before losing it, threw 116 pitches in twirling the Tigers’ first complete game since Brian Tallet went the route in a 9-0 victory at Kentucky last May 5.
Mestepey appeared to be in trouble in the ninth when he allowed singles to Gordon Tyler and Robert Preston, but recovered to finish the contest when he picked off pinch runner Brad Pickrell leaning off of first base.
Kentucky got off to a fast start, as Beau Moore and Spencer Graeter led off with back-to-back singles, with Moore giving the Wildcats a 1-0 lead when he came home on Caleb Brock’s grounder to second.
The Tigers responded in the bottom of the second on Todd Linden’s two-run homer to right-center. Linden, who is now tied for the team lead with sevenround-trippers, followed Bryan Moore’s leadoff double.
Kentucky would tie the game at 2-2 in the third on Graeter’s RBI single, but after that Mestepey took control, allowing just two hits in the fourth through eighth innings.
Kentucky starter Scott Wade worked seven solid innings, but could not get any offensive help after the third inning as he fell to 2-5 on the year.