BATON ROUGE — The LSU Fighting Tigers (13-6) open defense of their Southeastern Conference West division crown on Friday at 6:30 p.m. when they host Vanderbilt (11-3) in the first game of a three-game conference series.
The second game of the series is set for 2 p.m. Saturday, with the finale now scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Sunday. Sunday’s game time was changed from 1 p.m. to allow the Commodores the opportunity to catch their flight back to Nashville.
All three games of the series will be televised on a tape delay basis in Baton Rouge only. Friday and Saturday’s games will be shown on WGMB-Fox 44 starting at 9 p.m. each night, with Sunday’s game airing on Cox Cable Channel 4 starting at 7 p.m.
LSU (No. 7 ESPN/Baseball Weekly, No. 8 Collegiate Baseball, No. 9 Baseball America) has finished lower than third only once since 1989 in the overall SEC race (1995), and the Tigers have won the West division in seven of the nine years since the conference re-instituted divisional play in 1992. The Tigers have not won the overall league title since 1997.
The Tigers’ pitching rotation sets up as it has for most of the pre-conference weekend series, with junior right-hander Bo Pettit (1-2, 4.09) starting on Friday, sophomore left-hander Lane Mestepey (3-1, 3.03) on Saturday and junior right-hander Jake Tompkins (2-0, 2.96) on Sunday.
At the plate, junior third baseman Wally Pontiff will be looking to extend his 11-game hitting streak. Pontiff is batting .585 (24-for-41) during the streak and leads LSU with a .433 batting average on the season.
Mestepey, who took the loss in relief on Tuesday against Louisiana-Lafayette, was defeated last year by Vanderbilt despite throwing a complete game. The Commodores hit Mestepey for seven runs on 10 hits in a 7-5 triumph in the series opener.
The Commodores, under the leadership of veteran coach Roy Mewbourne, come into Baton Rouge on the heels of a 10-7 win at home Wednesday against Belmont. Vanderbilt’s pitching rotation is also set, as freshman left-hander Jeremy Sowers (2-0, 1.12) will take the mound on Friday, followed by a pair of senior right-handers in Jeff Little (3-1, 4.03) on Saturday and Steven Faulkner (2-1, 3.24) on Sunday.
Sowers is one of the nation’s top freshmen this year, as the Louisville native was drafted in the first round by the Cincinnati Reds last June but turned down the club’s offer to pitch for the Commodores. The southpaw has struck out 32 batters and walked only five in 24.0 innings this year.
The Commodores have several four-year seniors on their roster, most notably outfielder Karl Nonemaker, who is a career .421 hitter against LSU and is tied for fifth on the Commodores’ career hit chart with 232.
LSU has dominated the series since the league instituted round-robin play in 1986, with the Tigers holding a 40-19 edge. The Tigers bounced back from their loss in the series opener last year to win the final two games, 7-2 and 18-2 in eight innings. The Tigers hold a 24-10 all-time edge in games played in Baton Rouge and have not lost a series to Vanderbilt at home.
The Commodores’ only series win over LSU came in 1988 at Nashville. The Tigers hold a 14-8 edge in games at Music City.
This series marks the end of an 11-game homestand for the Tigers. LSU starts a four-game road series on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. when they visit Louisiana-Lafayette in a rematch of the game that the Cajuns won on Tuesday, 2-1. The Tigers resume SEC play next weekend with a three-game series at Ole Miss.