BATON ROUGE — Jake Tompkins gave up just one hit in five scoreless innings to earn his first victory of the season, as LSU scored eight runs in the first three innings and coasted home to an easy 8-0 victory over archrival Tulane on Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium.
The Fighting Tigers (25-11-1) and the Green Wave (26-12) have now won game each in their three-game season series, with the rubber match slated for April 29 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
LSU, which improved to 7-0 at home and 9-2 overall this year against Louisiana opponents, returns to Southeastern Conference play on Friday at 7 p.m. when the Tigers open a three-game series with Vanderbilt in Nashville. The series continues with games at 4 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
The Tigers (No. 7 Collegiate Baseball, No. 10 Baseball America, No. 12 ESPN/USA Today) lead the SEC West division and overall race with an 11-3-1 conference mark, one-half game ahead of Auburn and one game in front of Mississippi State.
Tompkins, who started six games earlier this season before returning to the bullpen in late March, made the most of his first start since March 16, yielding only a fifth inning single to Nathan Southard and finishing his stint with seven strikeouts to pick up his first win since last June 2 against Louisiana-Lafayette in the Baton Rouge regional championship round.
Tompkins, a 2002 second team All-SEC selection, retired the first 11 Tulane batters he faced before hitting Michael Aubrey and giving up a walk to Jonny Kaplan, both with two out. Tompkins threw 44 of his 67 pitches for strikes and had only three balls hit out of the infield.
Jason Determann allowed just one hit and one walk in three scoreless innings to run his streak of innings without allowing an earned run to 13 in a row, and then Billy Sadler pitched the ninth to complete LSU’s third shutout of the year, joining a four-pitcher effort on February 11 at Centenary and a five-hitter by Brian Wilson against Florida on March 14.
The two hits allowed are the fewest allowed by Tiger pitchers since Brian Tallet threw a two-hit shutout at Vanderbilt on March 17, 2000. LSU also recorded its first shutout of Tulane since a 10-0 whitewash on February 27, 1996 at home.
LSU, which scored 27 runs and blasted 33 hits in winning the final two games of its SEC series with Ole Miss this past weekend, wasted little time in getting started against the Green Wave (No. 25 ESPN/USA Today).
Bruce Sprowl drew a leadoff walk from Tulane starter Matt Goebel, who quickly found himself behind when he yielded a two-run home run to J.C. Holt, who lifted a shot to the opposite field down the left field line. It was Holt’s second home run of the year, and his first since the Centenary game, the fourth contest of the season.
Goebel retired Aaron Hill on a pop-up, but he then gave up singles to Ivan Naccarata and Blake Gill to put runners on the corners before Naccarata scored on Clay Harris’ sacrifice fly to the right field warning track to extend LSU’s lead to 3-0.
Jon Zeringue led off the second with a double, and following Goebel’s wild pitch that moved him to third, Matt Liuzza’s ground ball to Tulane second baseman Tommy Manzella allowed Zeringue to come home to give LSU a 4-0 lead.
Hill, the reigning SEC Player of the Week, started the Tigers’ four-run third with a single and a steal of second that led to a 5-0 lead on Blake Gill’s RBI single and drive Goebel (3-4) from the game after the freshman right-hander gave up six runs on six hits in 2 1/3 innings.
Harris greeted reliever Brandon Gomes with a single that put runners on first and second for Ryan Patterson, who doubled just inside the first base bag into the right field corner to score Gill for a 6-0 lead.
Zeringue then bounced a single past the pitcher’s mound into center field to score Harris and Patterson for an 8-0 lead.
LSU first baseman Harris let Tony Giarratano’s ground ball get under his glove to start the sixth inning, ending the Tigers’ streak of errorless games at five on the first miscue after 218 consecutive errorless chances, both of which are school records for the modern era (since 1965) of LSU baseball.
Tulane (26-12) 000 000 000– 0 2 1
LSU (25-11-1) 314 000 00x– 8 11 1
Matt Goebel, Brandon Gomes (3), Tyler Kimmons (7), Joey Charron (8) and Brian Bormaster; Jake Tompkins, Jason Determann (6), Billy Sadler (9) and Matt Liuzza.
WP–Tompkins, 1-3.
LP–Goebel, 3-4.
2B–LSU: Jon Zeringue (8), Ryan Patterson (10)
HR–LSU: J.C. Holt (2).
T–2:23.
A–7,801 (paid); 4,210 (actual).