OXFORD, Miss. – For a humid night in Mississippi, the beer sure dried up quickly.
After promising that Ole Miss wouldn’t throw much beer against LSU, LSU right-hander Paul Skenes gave up a three-run homer in the bottom of the fourth inning. But there were no showers when Tommy White responded with a grand slam over the fence at center field.
That helped lift the Tigers over Ole Miss after a brief deficit for a 7-3 victory Friday night at Swayze Field.
White leads the nation in RBIs per game, averaging 1.88. On Friday, he boosted that average with four more.
“I just take pride in that because that’s my goal,” White said. “That’s the only category I focus on, really, is how many runs can I score.”
After posting video game-like numbers for the first seven weeks of the season, Skenes gave up his first two home runs against South Carolina two weeks ago. Last week, he gave up a season-high seven hits and four earned runs to Kentucky.
Skenes entered the game against Ole Miss (21-17, 3-13 SEC) leading the nation with 104 strikeouts, the next-closest being Florida’s Hurston Waldrep with 83. He also leads the the nation in strikeouts per nine innings (17.55) and is third with an 11.56 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
By all counts, he’s the nation’s best pitcher, and he’s on his first and only tour of college baseball’s toughest ballparks.
So when he heard about the tradition of Ole Miss fans throwing beers, he offered a slight jab.
“I’ve heard a little bit about it, too. I think that’ll be cool,” Skenes said. “I don’t think they’ll be throwing a lot of beer, but I think that’ll be cool to see.”
LSU (30-7, 10-5) grabbed an early lead by manufacturing runs in the first and third.
Dylan Crews tripled off the wall in left-center and scored when Tommy White reached first on an error by shortstop Jacob Gonzalez for a 1-0 score.
Ole Miss had managed to get a runner in scoring position in the bottom of the second, and when Jordan Thompson fielded a chopper by Peyton Chatagnier and fired to first, Jared Jones’ foot had left the bag. Chatagnier was originally ruled safe, but after a challenge by LSU, the ruling was overturned. The call left the runner stranded.
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