BATON ROUGE — LSU pitcher Jason Scobie hurled his first career complete game as second-ranked LSU evened its series with Vanderbilt, claiming a 7-2 Southeastern Conference victory Saturday evening at Alex Box Stadium.
The victory also allowed the Tigers (29-13-1, 13-7) to remain in a first-place tie atop the SEC standings. Tennessee defeated Arkansas earlier Saturday, while the other teams tied for first at the beginning of the day, Ole Miss and Mississippi State, were still playing as the Tigers’ game ended.
The Tigers and Commodores (20-22, 7-13) play the rubber game of the series Sunday at noon. The game time was moved up one hour to accommodate Vanderbilt’s travel plans.
Unlike Friday’s 7-5 victory by the Commodores, which featured the ejection of LSU coach Skip Bertman, this game was relatively devoid of drama, as the Tigers jumped out to an early lead and never looked back.
Most of that was due to the brilliance of Austin native Scobie, a senior right-hander. Scobie won his second consecutive SEC start, giving the Tigers’ ailing bullpen needed rest as he threw the Tigers’ second complete game in as many days, as Lane Metsepey went the route but lost on Friday.
Todd Linden got LSU on the board in the first, as his two-out single scored Mike Fontenot, who singled with one out. Fontenot was also scored in the third, as he doubled with one out and came home immediately on Wally Pontiff’s RBI single.
Vanderbilt, who came into the weekend with the SEC’s best fielding percentage, would commit two errors that led to three Tiger runs. The first miscue came when Johnnie Thibodeaux laid down a sacrifice bunt. Commodore third baseman Ashley Freeman fielded the ball cleanly, but his throw went into right field, allowing Thibodeaux to reach second and scoring Matt Heath.
Ray Wright’s bunt single moved Thibodeaux to third, and two batters later, Thibodeaux scored on Ryan Theriot’s slow ground ball.
Pontiff’s home run in the ffith gave the Tigers a 5-0 lead, then errors by Sean Luellwtiz and Adam Blue in the sixth opened the door to the Tigers seventh run when Theriot singled home Raymer.
More importantly, Theriot’s hit extended his hitting streak to 16 games, the longest by a Tiger since Brad Cresse and Cedrick Harris had streaks of 24 and 21 games in 2000.
Vandy got its first run in the sixth as Jonathan Douillard led off with a single and scored on a sacrifice fly by Ulises Cabrera, then added their other run in the eighth on a home run by Worth Scott.