LSU baseball drops opening game to Arkansas in extra innings

A nine-inning pitchers’ duel turned into an extra-inning slugfest for No. 3 Arkansas as it took the series opener against No. 1 LSU 9-3 in 10 innings on Friday afternoon at Alex Box Stadium. 

It often takes one mistake to crack a pitchers’ duel, and the Razorbacks (20-2, 4-0 Southeastern Conference) were the first to capitalize, taking a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning before the Tigers tied it in the eighth.

But Arkansas broke it open with an eight-run rally in the top of the 10th inning off relievers Chase Shores, Christian Little and Will Hellmers.

LSU right-hander Paul Skenes punched out 12 batters and walked three, but his one wild pitch advanced a runner to set up a sac fly in the fourth, giving Arkansas a one-run lead.

Skenes’ three walks came in the sixth inning, but he escaped the jam by striking out the final batter. Before Friday’s game, Skenes had walked only four batters through his 30⅓ innings. He exited the mound having limited the Razorbacks to just two hits through seven innings, recording his fifth straight start with double-digit strikeouts. 

“Obviously it hurts to lose the first game of the series,” Skenes said. “I think the big lesson that we can learn from today is sticking to the plan and controlling it.” 

Offensively, it was hard for the Tigers (19-3, 2-2) to punch through left-hander Hunter Hollan. LSU only managed three hits and one walk through his 5⅓ innings.

“You want to control the ones that the umpire might have a pitch that he gets that’s a 50/50 pitch, and the pitcher may execute a pitch — but you still have one, and when you have one, you have a chance,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said. “I feel like we gave away some of our ‘ones.’ We could have done a better job of making it hard on them, so those are the ones we’ll go back and evaluate.”

The first chance LSU had to score was in the bottom of the fourth inning. Tre’ Morgan tripled off the wall in center field, and during Jared Jones’ at-bat, Morgan hesitated on a passed ball before taking off for the plate. He was tagged out at home by Hollan, who was covering.