BATON ROUGE, La. – A day after 16 runs and 19 hits were given up by Vanderbilt pitching, Taylor Hill allowed two runs on seven hits in his first career complete game in the Commodores 6-2 win Saturday night at Alex Box Stadium.
VU evened the series and improved to 33-14 overall and 11-10 in the Southeastern Conference, while LSU dropped to 34-14 and 12-11 in league play.
Hill was stellar on the night, carrying a shutout into the ninth inning. Wet Delatte’s two-out two-run single in the frame prevented the Commodores first complete game shutout of the year. Hill ended up allowing two runs on seven hits with eight strikeouts and just one walk to move to 5-3 on the season.
“I definitely wanted to get the shut out, the six runs we scored allowed me to stay in the game,” said Hill. “For most of the game I tried to hit my spots and mix in off speed pitches, but in the ninth I was just throwing fastballs to try and get them out.”
Vanderbilt plated two runs in the first on a RBI single by Aaron Westlake and on a fielding error by LSU third baseman Grant Dozar. Brian Harris was hit by a pitch to lead off the game, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and to third on a single by Jason Esposito. Westlake singled to right to score Harris and Esposito advanced to second. He then stole third and scored when Dozar couldn’t handle the throw from catcher Micah Gibbs in the attempt to get him caught at the bag.
VU added another run in the third when Joe Loftus scored from third on another fielding error by Dozar to make it 3-0.
The Tigers committed two more errors in the fifth, leading to two more unearned runs for the Commodores. Aaron Westlake had a RBI single and Andrew Giobbi a RBI fielder’s choice to bring in the runs.
The Dores added another run in the ninth after three consecutive two-out singles by Westlake, Curt Casali and Giobbi (RBI).
Jason Esposito led the team with three hits, three stolen bases and two runs scored. He was also stellar in the field with seven assists at third.
“Obviously the way we bounced back tonight was big,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin. “We got a good pitching performance from Taylor, liked the way he stopped them the way he did particularly after last night. I thought it was good to score some runs early in the game to build momentum. Happy to win the game for sure.”
Jordan Rittiner allowed five runs, one earned, on eight hits in 6.1 innings with one walk and six strikeouts to take the loss and drop to 4-3 on the year.
The Commodores and Tigers will play the final game of the three-game set tomorrow at 1 p.m. CDT. Sophomore right-hander Jack Armstrong (5-1, 3.83 ERA) will take the mound for VU, while LSU’s will throw junior right-hander Austin Ross (3-4, 5.63 ERA).
Photo by Jimmy Jones
