BATON ROUGE, La. — The Florida baseball had no trouble fitting in on the Bayou.
The Gators followed the local custom of lagniappe, in which a complimentary bonus gift is provided.
Florida (34-16, 16-9 SEC East) fell behind the No. 3-ranked LSU Tigers in the third inning then followed local custom by treating the host to eight lagniappe runs while visiting the new Alex Box Stadium for the first time as the No. 8-ranked UF baseball team dropped the series opener 10-1 on Friday night in a match-up between teams that lead their respective divisions in the Southeastern Conference.
UF redshirt senior pitcher Stephen Locke (3-1) lost for the first time this season after struggling to gain an advantage in the count, something coach Kevin O’Sullivan stressed as a factor in the loss.
“Stephen is going to give up his hits,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s one of those guys that’s going to rely on contact, he’s not going to strike out a ton (of batters). If we don’t play good defense behind him when he’s not pitching ahead in the count, these types of games will happen. But if he’s pitching ahead in the count and we play good defense he’s got a chance to pitch in the seventh or eighth inning.”
LSU (37-13, 17-8) scored in three of the four innings in which the leadoff hitter reached base.
“(Locke) worked from behind a lot,” O’Sullivan said. “When the leadoff man gets on an awful lot, you’re asking for trouble. For them, it helps to open things up, and that’s what they did.”
LSU tallied 12 hits against Locke, who threw 105 pitches in 5.1 innings.
“Nothing really worked tonight,” Locke said. “I was OK for the first couple of innings, but even in the second inning I was in trouble. I got out of it, luckily. It was just a poor outing.”
LSU scored four times in the fourth inning to extend its lead. A pair of singles an a sacrifice bunt put two runners in position to score on a fielding error by Florida left fielder Avery Barnes. LSU junior DH Blake Dean blasted his 12th home run of the reason to give the Tigers four runs in the inning.
“If you get behind on good hitters, they’re going to hit the ball out of the park,” Locke said.
Dean’s homer was a line drive that did not get very high off of the ground as it flew over UF right fielder Jonathan Pigott.
“Off the bat, I thought I had a chance to get it, but it just kept carrying,” Pigott said. “(The wind) was blowing out there pretty good.”
Locke retired the next four hitters he faced, including a perfect fifth inning.
“After that fourth inning when we got behind 6-0, I knew I was just going to have to suck it up throw a couple more innings and keep the damage minimal,” Locke said. “Unfortunately, in the sixth they had another good inning.”
LSU scored four more runs in the sixth inning. Freshman reliever Greg Larson entered the game with one out and allowed a three-run homer by DJ LeMahieu on the first pitch he threw. Larson finished the inning after throwing 12 pitches.
O’Sullivan elected to save his bullpen in order to have more options in the remaining two games on the series.
“The problem is, in first games like this, when you fall behind 6-0 you can’t use your best guys out of the ‘pen, you have two games left,” O’Sullivan said. “It wasn’t close for us the entire night. I don’t know if we would have thrown some better arms out there, who knows what would have happened. You have to save your guys, your bullets, for the last two games. That three-run home run kind of opened it up there a little bit. The bottom line is we never rallied to make it close. It wasn’t a close game all night.”
Justin Poovey entered the game with 22.1 innings pitched this season during nine appearances. Poovey was perfect in the two innings he threw to close the game for UF, striking out three of the six batters he faced.
A paid attendance of 10,203 was announced, including an actual crowd of 9,030 fans on hand to set the mark for the second-largest turnout at the new stadium.
“It’s an awesome atmosphere here,” Locke said. “They have great fans. It’s going to be a hard team to beat at home.”
LSU sophomore pitcher Anthony Ranaudo (6-3) pitched seven solid innings to keep the Gators off balance all night. Ranaudo struck out seven batters, scattering six hits and three walks to hold UF to one run.
Florida left the bases loaded in the second inning despite getting a pair of hits and a walk with two outs.
UF scratched across its only run in the fifth inning on an RBI groundout by freshman Preston Tucker. Barnes scored on the play after being moved into scoring position by a double from sophomore Jonathan Pigott.
Florida DH Buddy Munroe and Pigott each had two of the six hits Florida could muster off of Ranaudo.
“He’s a great pitcher,” Pigott said. “He located his stuff and had a great night and we didn’t play our best.”
Earlier in the game, sophomore second baseman Josh Adams’ throwing error in the second inning invited LSU to score a pair of runs.
“Josh makes a great play up the middle and rushes the throw,” O’Sullivan said. “He probably could have had more time to make that throw, the ball was hit pretty hard. Then (in the fourth, Locke) had an 0-2 count to Gibbs and ended up giving up a hit. You probably wish you had a pitch or two back, but that’s what happens with those two runs there. Then with left-on-left he had Mitchell leading off the bottom of the fourth, 1-0 count, throws a fastball, he chops it and the ball gets over the first baseman’s head and it’s off to the races. That’s kind of what happens. Then (in the sixth) we misplayed a ball in left, that’s one run and then things just kind of snowballed. It’s one of those nights.”
Saturday’s game will also be played under the lights, giving the Gators plenty of time to think over Friday’s loss and try to find a positive aspect to build on.
“We lost 10-1, so it can’t be too good,” O’Sullivan said. “We didn’t play our best baseball, it’s as simple as that. As a coach, you try to take something out of a loss, but this is a hard one. I don’t know what you take out of it other than that we didn’t play well. We didn’t pitch well, hit well and we didn’t play good defense. Other than not playing good in all three phases of the game, maybe that’s a positive, (that we can only play better).”
That sentiment was shared by Florida’s players.
“The only way to go is the other way,” Pigott said. “We got beat really badly. We just have to come out tomorrow, get ready to play—we’re a good team—and play our game.”
Despite the setback, UF maintained its two-game lead in the Eastern Division, as No. 13 Georgia dropped its series opener to Vanderbilt, 10-2, alleviating pressure to win more than one game in the series against LSU.
“Hopefully we can win two,” Pigott said. “Tomorrow, we have to clear our heads. Tomorrow is a new day, we just have to come out and play our game.”
Freshman righty Anthony DeSclafani (5-1, 3.58) will try to even the series tomorrow at 8 p.m. against Tiger senior right-hander Louis Coleman (9-2, 2.71). The game will be carried live on Sun Sports.