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Sunday, July 20, 2008

LSU BASEBALL BLOG

8 p.m. -- Deja Blue

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- LSU was down to its last strike today. Derek Helenihi walked, and Matt Clark turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead with one swing of the bat in the top of the ninth inning.
 
The Tigers held off Kentucky for a 9-8 victory.
 
If you're like me, you thought of 2006, the last time LSU had come here and played a Sunday game with a sweep on the line. The situations were a little bit different, but much of the ninth inning today jogged the memory banks dating to 2006.
 
Clark's home run came off Kentucky reliever Andrew Albers, the reigning SEC Pitcher of the Week.
 
For Albers, it was like having the same nightmare twice. Here is my game story and notebook from two years ago at Cliff Hagan Stadium to see what I mean:
 
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Quinn Stewart was down to his last strike, which means so were the LSU Tigers. Ecstatic Kentucky fans were talking smack, payback for years of having their noses metaphorically and collectively rubbed in so much crud, they shouted.
As the pitch that could have ended the game for a rare Kentucky sweep began its quick-reverse flight out of the ballpark, Commonwealth Stadium loomed in the background of the line of sight from LSU’s dugout along the third-base line.
Different sport, different context, but just down Sports Center Drive from Kentucky’s football home and the scene of LSU’s Bluegrass Miracle of 2002, Stewart launched a “SportsCenter” drive more than the length of a football field, breaking Big Blue hearts right when they were poised to celebrate a long-awaited victory.
Something about it felt familiar.
Stewart’s two-run home run didn’t end Sunday’s game -- Kentucky still had its turn at bat in the bottom of the ninth -- but it extended the game and the series and turned both around, igniting a four-run inning that sling-shot LSU past the stunned Wildcats, 5-2.
“That’s clutch right there,” said LSU’s Derik Olvey, who went from losing pitcher to winning pitcher with one swing. “That’s a guy coming through when you need.”
Stewart’s home run, his seventh in 10 games, gave him eight this season, tops in the Southeastern Conference, and kept LSU (17-5) from starting 0-3 in the SEC for the first time in 25 years.
“It’s one thing to start out 1-2,” Stewart said. “It’s another thing to go 0-3 on the first weekend. This is a big win for us. We needed something like this today.”
Kentucky (17-4, 2-1) saw its eight-game winning streak end. LSU snapped a three-game losing streak.
The Wildcats could almost taste their first 3-0 conference start in a decade -- and their first three-game sweep of LSU since 1991 -- but couldn’t close the deal. They know that feeling all too well.
In John Cohen’s three seasons as their coach, they are 1-19 on Sundays in the SEC. Eight of their 22 conference losses last season turned on the opponent’s last at-bat.
“This is going to happen,” Cohen said. “I told our club that we’re going to leave another club standing on the field the same way we lost today.”
Baseball does have a karmic sense of symmetry that way. One week earlier, LSU blew a ninth-inning lead for the first time in 157 opportunities, allowing Stetson to rally for four runs in the top of the ninth for a 9-8 victory in Baton Rouge.
Since Smoke Laval became their coach, the Tigers are 167-3 when they take a lead into the ninth. Before Stetson’s rally, LSU had not blown one since 2002, Laval’s first season.
That year, the LSU football team rallied for an improbable 33-30 victory at Kentucky on a last-second, twice-deflected 75-yard pass from Marcus Randall to Devery Henderson.
Kentucky made a big mistake before that, calling a timeout before kicking a go-ahead field goal. That left the Tigers enough time for a miracle.
The Bluegrass Miracle.
As the LSU baseball team hustled away from Cliff Hagan Stadium on their way to the airport Sunday, Stewart’s home run didn’t yet have a name, but Cohen acknowledged the pitch Stewart hit was a Kentucky mistake that left the comeback door open.
Kentucky starter Greg Dombrowski no-hit LSU for five innings and left with a 2-1 lead.
Stewart’s home run, off reliever, Andrew Albers, was LSU’s fourth hit of the game.
“One poor pitch,” Cohen said, referring to a hanging curveball by Albers. “It’s the one guy in their lineup that you can’t make a poor pitch to all weekend. He makes you pay.
“If we bury the breaking ball there or throw a changeup, the kid’s so aggressive -- he chased so many balls down in the zone -- that if we just throw it anywhere down in the zone, I think we might get him to chase, but we didn’t. We elevated that pitch, and he guided it right out of the part of the ballpark that gives up a lot of home runs.”
The outfield wall is marked at 390 feet near the spot in right-center field where Stewart’s opposite-field shot exited the stadium and became an unwelcome souvenir for Kentucky fans in their newly birthed tailgating area.
“I was looking for something up,” Stewart said, “and I was able to drive it and get it in the jet stream.”
NOTES: Michael Hollander’s leadoff single opened the ninth inning and was the first of three opposite-field hits into right field for LSU in the inning. After Stewart’s home run, Matt Liuzza singled to left field, Jordan Mayer walked and Jarred Bogany hit a two-run triple into
the right-field corner. … Each team scored a late run on an error by the pitcher trying to cover first base on a ground ball. … LSU was down to its last strike of the eighth inning before it scored its unearned run. Will Harris struck out with two outs but reached base on a
wild pitch. Pinch runner Chris McGhee was nearly picked off base but made it safely to second when Kentucky misplayed the situation with runners on the corners, allowing Bogany to score and cut LSU’s deficit to 2-1. … Olvey (5-0) held Kentucky to four hits and one earned run in eight innings. The usual Saturday starter, Olvey battled stomach flu and said he slept in his hotel room for about 17 hours Friday and another 17 hours Saturday. Daniel Forrer, the usual Sunday starter, walked the leadoff batter in the bottom of the ninth but earned his first save with a strikeout and a ground-ball double play. … The game was scoreless until Kentucky’s Michael Bertram hit a leadoff homer off Olvey in the fifth. … Cohen repeated a starting lineup for the first time this season Sunday, filling out the same one he used Saturday in a 6-3 victory.
 
How about that? Cohen gave similar quotes today. You'll see in tomorrow's coverage in The Advocate and Kentucky papers.
 
Not only did Albers give up the home run in 2006, but it came in a game started by teammate Greg Dombrowski, who was the starter again today.
 
 
 
  • Got a comment or question for Carl? E-mail him at cdubois@theadvocate.com.

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