LSU’s bullpen blew a 5-1 lead against UNO last night for their first loss of the year, but there’s no time to dwell on that anymore. LSU plays again tonight, this time at home against the Hofstra Pride (0-3).
If you don’t know anything about Hofstra baseball, that’s because they have never before played LSU. The Pride hail from Hempstead, New York and compete in the Colonial Athletic Association. The high for today in Hempstead is 50, so the Pride have decided to spend the carnival season in Louisiana. They opened up the season in Hammond, America, competing in the Tangi Tourism Baseball Classic where they played Murray State, hosts Southeastern, and ULL, losing all three games by a score of 5-1, 11-1, and 1-0. After the midweek in Baton Rouge they’ll keep on sliding down I-10 to Lafayette for, and this is a doozy of a name: The Mardi Gras Invitational: Beads And Baseball On The Bayou, where they will play Nicholls, Southern, and Grambling. There are worse ways to spend the back half of February, I suppose.
In their final two games on the weekend against Southeastern and ULL, Hofstra only collected five hits total with their only run coming off of a Vinnie Costello home run. Now their game against Southeastern was only a seven inning game, but it’s still not encouraging. Against ULL Teddy Cillis was good, going five innings allowing the only run of the game on six hits while striking out six and walking one, but reliever Andrew Mundy was really impressive. Mundy went three innings and the Cajun hitters could not figure him out, only recording one hit and two walks to pair with two strikeouts.
Hofstra only has four players who started and played all three games thus far, lead by Steven Foster who has three hits and two doubles in 10 at-bats with two walks and five strikeouts. Foster is batting .300/.500/.417 in those three games. The aforementioned Costello and Nick Bottari are the only Pride players who have recorded an RBI, Bottari’s also coming off of a solo home run against Murray State. Teddy Cillis also has recorded six at-bats as an outfielder, recording two hits and a double. As a whole, the Pride are batting .143/.250/.217. Yeah that’s a small sample size but that’s not great.
Leftie Michael James is expected to start for the Pride. James pitched a third of an inning against Southeastern, giving up one hit but issuing three walks leading to three runs, all earned giving him an ERA of 81.00. LSU will counter with Zack Hess, who pitched an inning against Air Force, where he gave up one run on two hits and a walk while striking out two.
First pitch is 6:30 and the game will be carried online on the SEC Network+ via WatchESPN and over the airwaves on 98.1. Play by play will be provided below, as well on Twitter @AdamATVS.