LSU's Hayden Travinski has home run overturned after fan interference, spectator ejected
LSU baseball had to deal with some controversy on Friday night in a very strange play. Slugger Hayden Travinski hit a ball deep back to the wall in the eighth inning against Texas A&M, where the ball touched the yellow line on the wall. It came back into the field of play, where umpires eventually ruled that it was a home run for Travinski. The play was reviewed a few minutes later, and Travinski was ruled out due to fan interference with the play.
The solo shot would’ve extended the Tigers’ lead to 7-4 entering the ninth inning and provided an insurance run in front of the home crowd in Alex Box Stadium.
Instead, the fan was eventually ejected from the contest due to fan interference and the announcers shared their thoughts on the situation. After a few replays, Kyle Peterson chimed in with his thoughts on ESPN2.
“That was not exactly what I thought we were gonna get. I thought we were gonna get either upheld or overturned. In fact, I thought we were gonna get overturned, it’s a double. Fan interference didn’t really enter my mind. I still don’t see it.”
“Fan interference didn’t really enter my mind. I still don’t see it.”
Peterson and Tom Hart watched some more replays, including some different views. One of them showed something he found interesting. While he didn’t know if the fan ended up making contact for sure, Peterson said they might’ve stopped it from being a sure-fire home run.
“I’ve got another thought on that angle. I don’t think the fan touched it,” he said. “But if he did touch it, he kept it from being a home run.”
Kendall Rogers of d1baseball.com also shared his thoughts on Twitter after the play happened.
“On ESPN2, @LSUbaseball fans definitely have a legitimate gripe there in the bottom of the eighth. The fan didn’t appear to touch the ball on that Travinski hit. It’s just been that type of season (so far) for the Tigers. Crazy play.”
Griffin Herring came back out for the ninth inning for LSU and, despite giving up two hits, picked up the save as the Tigers defeated Texas A&M 6-4 to open the three-game series at Alex Box Stadium. They’ll have two more games left in the series with the No. 1 ranked Aggies, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.
On3’s Nick Schultz also contributed to this article.