Baseball Falls to LSU in Game Two, 3-2

Friday, March 25

College Station

8:00 PM

Texas A&M

20-3, 3-2

LSU

16-6, 2-3

LSU

Texas A&M

Photo by: Texas A&M Athletics

Mar 25, 2016 | Baseball

Box Score

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – In a game that drifted into the next day, the No. 2 Texas A&M Aggies dropped a 3-2 decision to the No. 13 LSU Tigers Friday evening on Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park.

The loss evened the series at 1-1 and snapped the Aggies' 19-game home win streak.

Neither starting pitcher factored in the decision despite strong efforts. A&M's Tyler Ivey allowed one unearned run on five hits and one walk while striking out seven in 5.2 innings. LSU's Alex Lange yielded two runs on five hits and six walks while striking out 11 in 6.1 innings.

Mark Ecker (2-1) was the hard luck loser. He yielded two unearned runs in 2.1 innings.

Caleb Gilbert (3-1) earned the win or LSU. He worked 1.1 scoreless innings, scattering one hit and one walk while striking out three.

An Aggie streak of seven consecutive games scoring the first run was snapped as LSU (16-6, 2-3 SEC) drew first blood in the top of third inning. Cole Freeman started the frame with a single to rightfield and stole second base. After Kramer Robertson struck out swinging and Jake Fraley flied out to leftfield, Antoine Duplantis hit a chopper towards first base. Aggie first baseman Hunter Melton mishandled the infield single allowing Duplantis to swing around third and head home for the 1-0 lead.

Texas A&M (20-3, 3-2 SEC) wrestled the lead away from LSU in the bottom of the fifth. Ronnie Gideon walloped a prodigious clout over the leftfield fence to knot the game at 1-1. George Janca drew a five-pitch walk and moved to second on a wild pitch. With two outs, Boomer White knocked in Janca with a single through the right side to stake the Aggies to a 2-1 advantage.

The Tigers tied the game in the top of the seventh. Greg Deichmann drew an 11-pitch walk from Aggie reliever Ty Schlottmann to start the frame. Schlottmann was lifted for Ecker on the mound. After Deichmann was caught stealing, Freeman doubled down the rightfield line. A passed ball allowed Freeman to move to third and he came around to score on a groundout to short by Robertson.

LSU scored the winning run in the top of the ninth. Deichmann golfed a first pitch offering to right-center for a leadoff single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Freeman. With Ryan Hendrix on to relieve Ecker, Robertson slapped a ball to second base that was mishandled by Birk, allowing Deichmann to touch home for the 3-2 lead.

The Aggies got runners on the corners with two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the help of a leadoff single by J.B. Moss and an error by LSU's Deichmann on a grounder to third by Melton. Gilbert closed out the game by striking out Nick Banks on three pitches.

Texas A&M was doomed by 2-of-17 hitting with runners on base and 1-of-11 hitting with runners in scoring position.

The game which started at 8:03 p.m. due to television obligations, lasted 4-hours, 2-minutes, ending at 12:05 a.m.

The squads return to Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park for the rubber match Saturday at 2 p.m.

TEXAS A&M QUOTES
Head Coach Rob Childress
Thoughts on the game…
There were two great pitchers going at it tonight in (Alex) Lange and Tyler Ivey. Give LSU credit. They did what they needed to do to win this game and we didn't. For us, we made four mistakes, two defensive, one passed ball, and a bad pitch selection. LSU played almost perfect baseball. Every pitcher they went to did a great job. Lange gave them a great start and they played flawless defense behind him. They deserved to win this game more than we did."

On the pitching matchup…
"We were swinging out of the hand. (Alex) Lange was pouring that fastball in there with the change up. Early in the game he was dominant. We didn't really do a good job against him until the fifth inning when we took some pitches from him and scored a couple of runs to give ourselves at least a chance."