BATON ROUGE — LSU baseball's search for its first Southeastern Conference series win rolls onto another weekend.

Despite taking the series opener over No. 6 Vanderbilt Thursday night, No. 18 LSU couldn't get another win for the remainder of the set to drop its fourth straight series to open SEC play. LSU lost 8-6, in game 2 and were run-ruled in the finale Saturday afternoon, 13-3, in eight innings at Alex Box Stadium.

The Tigers have now lost series to Mississippi State, Florida, Arkansas and Vanderbilt.

After a month, the Tigers (21-12, 3-9 SEC) find themselves near the bottom of the SEC West division standings and the overall conference standings.

LSU pitching staff must fix two-out execution

All series long, LSU pitchers could not find ways to get off the field with two outs and runners on proved far more difficult.

Vandy clawed its way back into Game 1 by scoring five runs on two outs. It overwhelmed LSU in Game 2 on two-out base hits, plating six of its eight runs to come back and win. For the series, 13 of Vandy's 21 runs were two-out RBIs and were enough to earn the series victory, winning the last two games.

In the series finale Saturday, LSU struggled to get outs. The Commodores scored at least one run in every frame en route to piling up 13.

Jay Johnson exploring ways to shorten LSU's pitching staff

Following the series-opening win Thursday, LSU coach Jay Johnson said postgame that both starters and bullpen have struggled and that the coaching staff has been wading through the issue over the last month. He'd liked to arrive at a spot where he felt most confident with pair of starting pitchers and a go-to reliever.

"It's all about execution," Johnson said after LSU's win over Vandy in Game 1. "If guys aren't executing, you can't leave them out there. Your team has to be built for it. We won a national championships using five pitchers in the College World Series. So there is some wisdom in that. Good teams are like that. I've always believed in two starters and a closer."

Luke Holman and Griffin Herring both pitched well in Game 1 to get LSU the win. But the performances from the rest of the Tigers' wasn't solid enough.

Errors force LSU baseball change approach to Vanderbilt series

In postgame Saturday, Johnson mentioned the errors made by Holman and shortstop Michael Braswell that forced the coaching staff's hand in bringing in Herring earlier than they would've like as LSU's 9-0 started to slip away.

"If we don't have to bring (Herring) in (Thursday night) then he's finishing that game (Friday night). It is what it is," Johnson said. "There wasn't going to be no shot after last weekend that I was losing Thursday night's game with our best pitcher (Holman).

"But it cost us, it cost us big. But my opinion is, we should have someone else and right now, we don't. And I'm really surprised by that."

LSU FALLS TO VANDERBILT IN GAME 2 LSU baseball loses lead late as Vanderbilt evens SEC series thanks to 2-out RBIs

LSU BASEBALL BEATS VANDY IN GAME 1 LSU baseball cashes in on Vanderbilt's mistakes to earn series-opening win

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU baseball drops series to Vanderbilt as pitchers struggle