Home plate umpire was all over the place last night. Most of the game he doesn't call strikes for anything that wasn't right over the plate, other times it was whenever he felt like it. No wonder Nola threw a lot of stuff down the middle.
Before yesterday's game: LSU’s 19-2 record represented the Tigers’ best 21-game start since the 1997 club posted a 20-1 mark. Now: LSU’s 20-2 record is the Tigers’ best 22-game mark since the 1997 team also won 20 of its first 22 games. (1997 team: CWS Champs, Brandon Larson, Eddy Furniss, Blair Barbier, etc) Mainieri: “We did a lot of things really well tonight, and some other things we didn’t do so well,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri . “We had some big hits, including the home runs from Rhymes and Katz, but Auburn never quit and stayed in the game the entire night. I told our guys after the game that you can throw out the records every time you play an SEC team. Every game in our league is a serious challenge against a quality opponent.” Auburn out hit LSU 12 to 10 last night Auburn coach: " Offensively we had 12 hits on the board and we put ourselves in position where maybe one more swing here or there would make it an interesting game , " Auburn Head Coach John Pawlowski said . " It' s tough. They jumped up early, we got back in it at 3 - 2 but they put another big swing on it . Two big swings and they score five runs and that 's tough to overcome and we couldn ' t do that tonight . "
For this evening's game, 2013 LSU Baseball Trading Cards will be given away as fans enter the stadium
Last night's attendance in the Box for the SEC home opener was 7,066...which was 4th best so far this season. Here are the games that drew over 6K in the Box so far this season 9,746 - Maryland (Fri) - OPENING DAY 7,254 - Washington (Sat) 7,104 - Maryland (Sat) 7,066 - Auburn (Fri) - SEC HOME OPENER 6,953 - SLU (Fri) 6.742 - BYU (Sat) 6,462 - Maryland (Sun) 6,178 - Washington (Fri) Compare to the attendances at Miss State for our series there last weekend: 9341 - LSU (Sat) 8068 - LSU (Fri) 7686 - LSU (Sun) Compare to the attendances for our Men's basketball team in the PMAC this season, they drew over 6K in everyone of their home games: PMAC (Men) 10187 -- 03/09/13 -- Ole Miss 9964 -- 01/12/13 -- Florida 9720 -- 02/16/13 -- Miss State 8804 -- 01/30/13 -- Missouri 8200 -- 02/23/13 -- Alabama 7891 -- 02/27/13 -- Arkansas 7295 -- 11/29/12 -- Seton Hall 7075 -- 02/06/13 -- Vanderbilt 7064 -- 01/23/13 -- Texas A&M 7032 -- 12/28/12 -- Houston Baptist 7018 -- 11/20/12 -- Northwestern State 6966 -- 11/09/12 -- UC Santa Barbara 6776 -- 11/13/12 -- McNeese 6760 -- 12/11/12 -- Chattanooga 6654 -- 01/16/13 -- South Carolina 6462 -- 01/05/13 -- Bethune-Cookman 6237 -- 11/24/12 -- Mississippi Valley State Our women's basketball only had two home games that drew over 6K, but they have at least one, potentially two, more for Rounds One and Two of the NCAAT PMAC (Womens) 6773 -- 02/24/13 -- Kentucky 6402 -- 02/04/13 -- Texas A&M
Aaron Fitt of Baseball America: "it's just so hard to make headway in that conference (the SEC) because it is so absurdly deep." Auburn looks "like a pretty good club to me;" they "could be dangerous" "I think the SEC sends 10 teams to regionals" this year (LSU, Auburn, A&M, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss State, Vandy, South Carolina, Kentucky, Florida)"
Glenn Guilbeau: BATON ROUGE - LSU's power surge continued Friday night as the No. 3 Tigers beat Auburn 9-4 with a pair of home runs in front of 7,066 (by Rhymes and Big Katz) ... It was the eighth home run in eight games for (Big) Katz ... LSU made it 7-2 in the fifth on a screaming, bases-loaded, two-run, line drive single by Christian Ibarra ... (THE BOSS) Bregman finished 3-for-4 with three runs scored ...
USA TODAY: 03/22/2013 LSU's Mason Katz top dog in SEC ... The bulky first baseman from the New Orleans area has hit seven home runs in his last seven games alone this season and is atop the SEC in three major categories ... (Big Katz) leads the SEC in home runs with nine, in RBIs with 32 and in total bases with 59. He also leads the nation in RBIs and is third in home runs. ... The last LSU player to homer in five straight games was catcher Brad Cresse in 1998 ... "The best thing is I'm not so amped up ... I know about staying calm ... I try to go into every SEC series with the same rationale." (said Katz) ... (Katz) hit safely in 17 consecutive plate appearances in late February and early March of last season, falling one short of tying the NCAA record. He has always been a consistent hitter. He hit .318 as a freshman, .337 as a sophomore, .302 as a junior and is batting .351 now. ...
Mainieri: "We didn't have a whole lot of hits in the first 5 innings, but we got the three big ones we needed to take control," LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. "Guys came through when they had to." Rhymes on his 3 run home run: "Coach Mainieri put the runners in motion and told me to be aggressive," Rhymes said. "I put a good swing on the ball and it got out of here." Ibarra on his full count, 2-RBI single with the bases loaded (which Randy Rosetta described as: he "slammed a wicked line drive"): "I took a first-pitch fastball and thought it was high and away and when I looked at (Mainieri), I think he wanted to kill me," Ibarra said with a chuckle. "I just wanted to go up there battle. I wanted to at least hit a fly ball and not ground into a double play. We had to have something out of that after we got the bases loaded with no outs." Mainieri on Ibarra's 2 RBI single: "Christian probably knew what he was doing," Mainieri said with a wistful smile. "We had practiced that situation earlier this week and it was a point of emphasis and he basically did the opposite of what I told him to do. When he had two strikes, he had a little bit of pressure on him because I'm sure he didn't want to come back to the dugout and hear from me." Mainieri pointed out Ibarra's single also had a long-term affect. "Had he not come through Katz would not have seen another pitch to hit this series, so that was big for us," he said. Randy Rosetta on Nola: "Auburn produced 9 hits in Nola's 6.2 innings, but he also struck out 9. Of AU's nine hits, five came with two-strike counts. The good news for LSU, though, was that only two produced runs" Nola on his outing last night: "I gave up a lot of hits, too many hits," Nola said. "I didn't even realize I had 9 strikeouts until I came out. The biggest thing to me, though, was that I put up four zeroes (on the scoreboard) and kept my team in the game. "It's always frustrating when you're ahead in the count and they get a hit off you. I'd get (ahead) 0-and-2 and then fall behind, and that's what kind of killed me."
Nola: "I made a couple of bad pitches , " Nola said . " I left the ball up in the zone and Auburn made me pay for it . " LSU student newspaper: " both teams flexed their muscles at the plate, combining for 22 hits" Mainieri: " Auburn has SEC - caliber athletes . I knew they wouldn ' t quit, " Mainieri said . " We 'll take the victory … we did some good things tonight and were able to secure the victory. "
Top 1 LSU starting two freshman in OF again: CF Stevenson (for Sciambra) and RF Laird Eades 2-2, K! 1-2 groundout 3-0, walk groundout
