Kade Anderson Goes the Distance as LSU Beats Oklahoma 2-0

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKade Anderson

Kade Anderson.

Those are the only two words needed to summarize LSU (28-3, 8-2) taking game one of its weekend series against the Oklahoma Sooners (23-6, 5-5) Thursday night in Norman.

Anderson went the distance Thursday night, throwing a career-high 135 pitches and 14 strikeouts en route to a complete game shutout. It’s the first complete game shutout by a Tiger pitcher since AJ Labas did it in 2018.

Offense, clearly, was hard to come by in LSU’s 2-0 win as the Tigers and Sooners threw their aces at one another. Anderson was superior, but Kyson Witherspoon was no pushover and on any other night his six innings of two-run ball would have been good enough for an Oklahoma win. Witherspoon just happened to have the misfortune of going up against Anderson pitching the game of his life.

LSU first got on the board in the third inning when Jared Jones brought Derek Curiel home after Curiel doubled to left field. Two innings later, Chris Stanfield hit a double down the right field line that scored Luis Hernandez to give LSU its 2-0 lead.

On this night, two runs was more than enough offense for Anderson to get LSU home. Anderson sat down the final 12 batters he saw and the last Sooner baserunner came in the sixth inning. Oklahoma led off the sixth with a double by Sam Christensen, but Anderson responded by striking out the side to get out of the jam.

If you were on social media during the game, LSU Twitter gave Anderson a standing ovation after he got of the sixth inning jam…and then he came out for the seventh and had a 1-2-3 inning. Then we gave him an ovation after that…except he came out for the eighth, and had another 1-2-3 inning including his 14th and final K of the night.

Everyone on LSU Twitter was giving Anderson what surely had to be his last attaboy for the night, but then Anderson came out for the ninth and by God he finished the job.

Anderson saving the pen, obviously, means LSU will have Zac Cowan and Casan Evans ready to go for tomorrow and Saturday’s game, and not using either tonight changes my whole outlook on the series. You never want to predict a sweep, especially on the road against a top-10 team, but if the goal is to win one of the next two games and you’ve still got your two best arms ready to go, well then I think a series victory is very much in LSU’s future.

LSU and Oklahoma will pick things back up Friday evening at 6:30 P.M. and that game may be streamed via SEC Network+. Anthony Eyanson will once again get the game two start.