NASHVILLE — With LSU in first place in the Southeastern Conference at the midway point of the league’s baseball schedule, the Fighting Tigers look to get the second half of the 30-game conference slate off to a strong start when they visit Vanderbilt for a three-game series at the Commodores’ new Hawkins Field.
The series gets underway on Friday at 7 p.m., followed by games at 4 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. All three games will be broadcast by the full LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge), with live audio and live statistics from the games available on the Internet at www.lsusports.net.
Sunday’s game will be televised live in Louisiana by the Jumbo Sports Network (cable channel 10 in Baton Rouge), with the game available to other cable subscribers throughout other SEC markets on Comcast Sports Southeast.
LSU (25-11-1, 11-3-1 SEC) enters the weekend one-half game ahead of Auburn (30-8, 11-4) and one game ahead of Mississippi St. (26-7-1, 10-3) in the West division and overall races. The Tigers took over first place last weekend by winning two of three from Ole Miss at home, while the Bulldogs fell out of first by losing two at home to Auburn.
The Tigers (No. 7 Collegiate Baseball, No. 10 Baseball America, No. 12 ESPN/USA Today) have won their last nine SEC series, including last weekend’s series with Ole Miss. By winning two at Vanderbilt this weekend, LSU will tie its own school and conference record of 10 consecutive series wins set in the final series of 1985 and all nine series of 1986.
LSU is coming off of an impressive 8-0 victory on Tuesday over in-state archrival Tulane, as Tiger pitchers Jake Tompkins, Jason Determann and Billy Sadler combined to hold the Green Wave to two hits in the Tigers’ third shutout of the year. Tompkins started and struck out seven in five innings to earn his first win of the year, while Determann added three scoreless innings to give him 13 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run.
The Tigers’ pitching rotation for the series will remain the same as it has the previous two weekends. Freshman right-hander Justin Meier (4-1, 2.18) will try to bounce back from his first loss of the season last week to Ole Miss on Friday, with senior right-hander Bo Pettit (6-1, 4.41) and junior right-hander Nate Bumstead (5-1, 4.66) looking to build on last week’s victories on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Meier has been forced into the weekend rotation due to a season ending elbow injury to Brian Wilson, who had been the Tigers’ Friday night starter in their first three league series.
At the plate, LSU’s Aaron Hill continues to lead the way for the potent Tiger offense that is batting .342 in SEC games and .310 overall. Hill is batting .388 on the year with an SEC leading .512 on-base percentage, and is hitting .466 in SEC games with 15 RBI.
Vanderbilt (17-18, 6-9) is in its first season under coach Tim Corbin after 24 seasons under Roy Mewbourne, the Commodores’ all-time winning coach. Corbin was part of four College World Series teams at Clemson as the Tigers’ top assistant to Jack Leggett.
The Commodores’ strength lies in a solid pitching staff that held Florida to four runs in a three-game sweep earlier this year and Ole Miss to seven runs in three games despite losing two of three.
Corbin will send one of the nation’s top left-handers to the mound on Friday opposite Meier in sophomore Jeremy Sowers (2-4, 2.63). Sowers, 2001 first round draft choice of the Cincinnati Reds, has been victimized by poor run support this season, but has won his last two starts, including six innings of no-hit ball last Friday at Arkansas.
Rounding out the Commodore rotation will be junior right-hander Robert Ransom (3-1, 5.00) on Saturday and freshman left-hander Ryan Mullins (2-5, 3.29) on Sunday.
Vanderbilt’s top hitter is junior first baseman Cesar Nicolas, who is hitting .356 and leads the Commodores in home runs (4) and RBI (18).
LSU holds a 41-21 edge in the all-time series that started in 1954, but Vanderbilt won two of three last year in Baton Rouge in the first SEC series of the season. Pettit threw a four-hit shutout in the series opener to outduel Sowers in a 6-0 victory, but the Commodores came back to win the final two games of the series 9-2 and 8-7.
This weekend’s series marks LSU’s first trip to Vanderbilt’s new stadium, which opened in 2002 for $5.8 million. LSU last came to Nashville in 2000 when the Commodores played in the old McGugin Field. LSU holds a 15-8 all-time edge in Music City and has won the last five series contested at Vanderbilt.
LSU returns home for four games next week, starting on Wednesday with a make-up game with Southeastern Louisiana before hosting Tennessee in a three-game SEC series next weekend.