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SEC Tournament: LSU shuts down Georgia bats in 9-1 win, snaps Charlie Condon’s hit streak
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LSU got the SEC Tournament rolling on Tuesday with a 9-1 win over 6-seed Georgia. The victory for the Tigers (37-20) moves them onto the double-elimination portion of the tournament and sets up a meeting with 3-seed Kentucky on Wednesday. For Georgia (39-15), the loss means they’ll crash out of the conference tournament on the opening day and await the NCAA Tournament selections next Monday.
The Tigers opened Monday’s game with consecutive singles and a walk before Josh Pearson smacked a 2-RBI single that gave LSU an early 2-0 lead. Two batters later, Georgia walked another LSU batter and starting pitcher Jarvis Evans’ day was ended after just 1 out and 6 batters faced. Christian Mracna replaced him on the mound and retired the next 2 batters to end the inning with minimal damage.
LSU got another run across in the second, added 2 more in the fifth, Jake Brown scored in the seventh, and a leadoff home run from Steven Milam opened a 3-run ninth inning to slam the door shut on the Bulldogs. Georgia burned through 5 pitchers, with Evans taking the loss.
Tommy White went 3-for-6 while Josh Pearson went 2-for-4 with 3 RBI.
Georgia gave up 14 hits, walked 7 batters, and hit 2 others. They struck out 10 combined.
More than anything, the inability of Georgia to get anything going against LSU pitcher Gage Jump was its undoing. Jump went 7 innings giving up just 4 hits and 1 run with 7 strikeouts. He threw 105 total pitches — 75 of them strikes, consistently pounding the zone.
Jump got to two-strike counts against 13 of the first 17 batters he faced and retired 18 of the last 19 Georgia batters who stepped into the box.
In a battle between one of the hottest pitchers in the SEC and one of the best hitters in the country, Jump came out on top. Georgia slugger Charlie Condon, who entered the game leading the nation with a .451 batting average and 35 home runs this season, went 0-for-4 on the day. The fruitless afternoon snapped what was a 24-game hit streak for Condon.
Georgia’s only run of the day came in the second inning, when a single to left field saw Dillon Carter score from second. From then on, Jump was on the money.
The Bulldogs entered Tuesday’s matchup as a projected host in the NCAA Tournament. D1Baseball’s projected field on Monday had Georgia slated as the national No. 8 seed. LSU was projected to be a 3-seed in the Stillwater Regional and should be safe after beating the Bulldogs.
LSU’s RPI was 30 coming into Tuesday. The win gives LSU a winning record (19-18) now in Quad 1 and 2 games.
Wednesday’s game against Kentucky is set for a 10:30 a.m. ET start on SEC Network. An opening line for the game had not yet been posted at the time of publication, but Kentucky is one of the favorites to win the College World Series (+900 at FanDuel) and will likely enter Wednesday’s matchup as the betting favorite.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
