BATON ROUGE, La. — Outfielder Mark Laird went 4-4 for the Purple team and Alden Cartwright provided two innings of solid relief work for the Gold squad as the Gold defeated the Purple, 6-4, Thursday night in Game 1 of the LSU Baseball Purple-Gold World Series at Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.
The Gold leads the three-game series, 1-0, and the teams return to the field at 7 p.m. Friday for Game 2. Game 3 is Sunday at 5 p.m. Admission to all games is free.
“It wasn’t the most picturesque game for sure. There were some good things, though,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “I thought the starting pitchers (freshmen right-handers Alex Lange and Jake Godfrey) showed why we are so high on them. Unfortunately, they were the victims of some poor plays on defense. Both catchers struggled early in the game, and there were a couple of errors at third base.
“I thought both starting pitchers threw the ball well and they’ll be outstanding. There were a couple of clutch hits – Kramer Robertson, Beau Jordan and Mark Laird each had two-out base hits. I thought Robertson and Alex Bregman both played well at shortstop. There were some good at-bats and some not-so-positive things. Fortunately, we don’t begin the regular season until February 13, so we have some time to get things corrected.”
Lange and Godfrey each pitched three innings for the Purple and Gold teams, respectively. Lange was charged with three runs, while Godfrey gave up two.
Freshman Grayson Byrd led off the bottom of the second inning for the Gold with a walk. Byrd moved to third on a single by Austin Bain, and he scored on a wild pitch by Lange to give Gold a 1-0 lead.
The Purple team responded in the top of the third with two runs. Turner Graham reached first after an error by Byrd. The bases were loaded after singles by Laird and Robertson. Graham scored on a passed ball, and Kade Scivicque grounded out to score Laird and give the Purple a 2-1 lead.
Bregman started off the bottom of the third for the Gold with a walk. Bregman moved to second on a wild pitch by Lange and scored on a single by Conner Hale. Jordan then singled to right field to score Hale, which gave the Gold team a 3-2 lead.
Greg Deichmann led off the fourth inning for the Purple with a walk. He moved to second on a groundout by Jake Fraley and scored on an RBI double by Laird. Laird moved to third on a balk by freshman Ryan May, and he scored on a double to left-center field by Robertson to give the Purple a 4-3 lead.
The Gold came back in the fifth inning with three runs off of reliever Parker Bugg. Hale started off by hitting a ball that was misplayed by third baseman Danny Zardon. Catcher Mike Papierski followed with a walk. Both runners then moved to second and third on a groundout by Jordan. Byrd brought home the runners with a double down the left field line, and Bain hit an RBI single to give Gold the 6-4 lead.
Cartwright entered the game in the fifth and provided outstanding relief for the Gold team. Cartwright retired six of the seven batters he faced, only allowing a single to Laird.