Morning game in Atlanta, Ruby Tuesday, Derek Jeter and a midnight hotel: How Mississippi State got Jordan Westburg to Starkville

By Brett Hudson

Paul Westburg couldn’t help but chuckle at the man in the black polo, effectively chasing his son down the first base line with stopwatch in hand at a summer ball event in Atlanta.

On that June day in 2016, Paul and Christine Westburg were almost 1,000 miles away from their home in New Braunfels, Texas, watching their son Jordan play. Jordan had set goals to play Power 5 conference baseball, and if at all possible in the best conference of them all, the SEC. Most of the interest came from in-state schools, but some others came calling in the later stages: Jordan remembers Kentucky and Duke, Paul remembers West Virginia and Christine remembers Air Force. Yet, if not for the events of this one Atlanta weekend, Jordan Westburg believes he was likely heading to the Texas Longhorns, all of 50 miles northeast of his hometown.

Then came that man in the black polo. It was Will Coggin, then a Mississippi State assistant coach. He was wildly impressed with Jordan Westburg and wanted to take a last-second shot at getting him. Coggin scheduled it out for them: Jordan had a 9 a.m. game one day and a mid-afternoon game the next, so drive over to Starkville after the 9 a.m. game, stay the night somewhere and get back to Atlanta in time for the next game.

“We were just sitting in the car, and Jordan looked over at me and said, ‘Can we drive to Starkville today?’ I said, ‘Absolutely,’” Paul Westburg said. “We went back to the condo, showered and took a road trip from Atlanta to Starkville.”

Little did they know they would be making a much longer drive to Starkville many more times over the coming years. Little did they know Jordan would soon reach banana-based fame and the top tier of 2019 SEC hitters — he’s currently 11th in the league in batting average (.345), slugging (.569) and on-base percentage (.443), tied for fifth in RBI (47) and tied for third in doubles (17).

They would soon find out that Coggin saw it all coming.

* * *

Then-head coach John Cohen could tell his assistant was enamored with what he saw as he got the reports from Coggin. Cohen remembers Coggin telling him Westburg was a sure thing for the left side of the infield, an exceedingly rare prospect in that regard. He also noticed the speed on that stopwatch run — and Westburg didn’t make Coggin wait, hitting a ball hard to left-center on his first at-bat.

The schedule for an impromptu unofficial visit set, the Westburgs made the drive and got the Mississippi State experience. After the tours and meetings and all, as Paul Westburg remembers it, Cohen asked if the family could hang around for an hour as he solidified the scholarship status of another recruit. Cohen knew he wanted Westburg, but he knew others did, too, and his scholarship offer had to be competitive; that being the case, he wanted to ensure other recruits that their scholarships would not be impacted by getting Westburg, if they could seal the deal.

So the Westburgs went to Ruby Tuesday, down Highway 12 from campus. Paul Westburg said the waitress took one look at Jordan and asked him if he were considering MSU, and he said yes.

Her response: “Don’t do it, there’s nothing to do here.” Paul Westburg turned to his son and told him not to listen to her. He clearly didn’t, but he listens to her now: Jordan thinks the same woman is a professor in one of his classes this semester.

They laugh about that moment now, but it was the one that came after dinner that they remember most.

They returned from dinner to Cohen’s office. Paul Westburg said Cohen told them he asked Coggin to compare Jordan to a player. Coggin’s response: Derek Jeter. He’s Christine Westburg’s favorite player; Paul was gobsmacked that a coach would compare Jordan to such a great player.

They listened to Cohen’s offer and went back to the car, Christine searching for hotel rooms between Starkville and Atlanta. They got in the car and looked up at the football stadium, where there was projection playing highlights from what was a SEC regular season championship for the Diamond Dawgs in 2016. The family sat in the car and watched the highlights, Paul immediately impressed with Cohen’s marketing ability. Christine found a hotel room in Birmingham and the Westburgs made it back to Atlanta in time for the next day’s game.

Christine remembers Jordan feeling something for MSU as soon as he set foot on campus. Paul more clearly remembers the bedside conversation a couple of week later.

“Jordan’s always had that belief in himself that he could play at this level, and to be honest with you, I was watching and saying, ‘Wow, that’s amazing baseball,’” Paul Westburg said. “He always had this calm assurance and when it came down to make his decision, we sat on his bed and said, ‘I have great peace about Mississippi State.’”

That feeling was not lost quickly. In the final days before Westburg signed, MSU transitioned from John Cohen to Andy Cannizaro, all while Texas coach David Pierce was calling Westburg daily. Still, Jordan felt a peace about MSU, so he signed in November 9, a date Paul Westburg still remembers with ease. By the end of Jordan’s first season as a Bulldog, he was flashing the potential Coggin saw.

* * *

As people started looking ahead to the 2019 season, Jordan Westburg and his bat were a consistent fixture in the conversation; there was no guarantee that would be the case even entering what could have been the final month of his freshman season.

Westburg steadily battled Justin Foscue for third base playing time before a hamstring injury more or less put an end to that in early May. Westburg was out of the lineup entirely for four games and sat with a .216 batting average on 74 at-bats. Over the next 41 at-bats — a pivotal Florida series to end the regular season, the Tallahassee Regional, the Nashville Super Regional and Omaha — Westburg would raise his average as high as .261, getting 14 hits in those 41 at-bats (.341) before the final two games against Oregon State. Jordan Westburg believes that run laid the foundation for the elite hitter he is now.

“It was always in me. I think it took a little development, whether that’s mentally or being able to relax and let those tools I have come out,” he said.

This weekend, he returns to his home state as the proven commodity on a top 10 team. The Westburgs think as many as 30 or 40 people could make the drive 2 1/2 hours to College Station to see Jordan play against the Aggies this weekend; Jordan’s grandmother, Dot, has already drove from Philadelphia to be there: 1,700 miles from Philly to New Braunfels.

If not for a last-second drive to Starkville, this would be a weekly show in the Lone Star State.

Full Count, Week 11: 3 Interesting Stats and 2 Things to Watch Post-Mangum Record

Three Interesting Stats

Feast or famine Allen

Isn’t it kind of wild that the guy hitting .302 — on a team with guys hitting .394, .345, .340 and .314 — entered the weekend tied for the team lead in 3-hit games, and then had one more this weekend?

That’s been the story of 2019 for Tanner Allen. When he hits, he hits in bunches for 9-inning spurts, but for some reason he hasn’t been stringing hits together game after game after game. His longest hitting streak of the year is seven games; now compare that to the season-long hitting streaks of Jake Mangum (20), Dustin Skelton (13), Elijah MacNamee (12) and Justin Foscue (10).

Those six games with 3+ hits account for 19 of Allen’s 54 hits, thus 35.1 percent of his hits coming in 13.3 percent of his games. Let’s compare that to Westburg, who has a similar profile to Allen — no double-digit game hitting streak and five games of three hits or more — but even he only has 26.6 percent of his hits concentrated in 11.3 percent of his games. The same can be said for Foscue, who similarly to Allen has 34.3 percent of his concentrated in seven 3+ hit games, but he has so many that those hits are spread over 15.5 percent of his games.

Here’s another way to put it: Allen has 16 multi-hit games and 14 hitless games, leaving him with just 15 games with a single hit. Compare that with Skelton (21 one-hit games) and Rowdey Jordan (18 one-hit games) to see that oddity.

I find this fun because this is not who Allen was last season — in late April and early May last year he went on an 11-game hit streak, had a hitless game and then hit in six straight games — but he’s just as productive. Hitting is all about bringing in runs, and Allen’s doing it this way: in 68 games last year he had 45 RBI and scored 42 runs; this year in 45 games, he’s got 44 RBI and scored 42 runs.

Plus, there’s a pretty high correlation between Allen multi-hit games and wins: the Bulldogs are 14-2 when he gets two or more hits. I say let Allen feast and let him famine, knowing the famines are short-lived and the feasts are a spectacle to behold.

Dustin Skelton, Big Game Hunter

Did you know that Dustin Skelton has had a 3 RBI to 1 hit ratio in three games this year? He did it for the third time in the Friday night game against Georgia: one hit for three RBI.

It’s pretty clearly a factor of batting seventh with OBPs of .444, .443, .397, .429, .391 and .372 ahead of him, but he’s been prone to one swing of the bat changing the game this year, and he has a habit of delivering: the man’s hitting .467 with runners in scoring position.

Hello, Luke Hancock

I found myself thinking a few weeks ago that Mississippi State could have the deepest hitting bench in college baseball, when the merry-go-round of Josh Hatcher, Brad Cumbest and Marshall Gilbert was holding it down.

Now it’s added Luke Hancock as a legitimate threat, and friends, I have no idea what to do with this information.

Hancock now has two hits in his last six at-bats and has drawn a walk in all three of his SEC starts. Cumbest and Hatcher remain useful pieces to play in that rotation, and we have yet to mention Landon Jordan and Hayden Jones.

I asked Chris Lemonis about Hancock at one point this weekend and he said Hancock’s been doing well in practice and earned some game ABs, and that can’t be more clear: of his 20 at-bats this year, 10 have come since April 16. Lemonis also said they like to use matchups whenever possible — handedness, approach, strengths and weaknesses of pitcher and hitter among those factors — and frankly it’s hard to imagine a matchup MSU doesn’t have an answer for at this point.

Two Things to Watch Post-Mangum Record Chase

Ethan Small

Konnor Pilkington was Mississippi State’s ace for two seasons, one of them making a Super Regional and another making the College World Series. He used ending his final two seasons with 111 and 107 strikeouts to finish top 10 on the MSU career list in career strikeouts.

Ethan Small bumped his 2018 season total to 114 in his Friday start and win, moving him from 17th on MSU’s single-season list to 10th.

Climbing up the ladder is a given: he’s one behind a tie for ninth (Jeff Brantley 1984 and Dakota Hudson 2016), seven behind eighth (Hank Thomas 1999), eight behind his own 2018 season and 13 behind sixth (Chris Stratton, 2012).

He’s going to be moving up on the MSU career strikeouts list, too. His most recent outing gives him 256; he could be as high as seventh as his next start with Pilkington in 10th (260), Carlton Loewer in ninth (261), Don Robinson in eighth (262) and Mike Proffitt in seventh (265). The top two of Eric DuBose (428) and Jeff Brantley (364) seem out of reach, but Chris Stratton in 3rd (279) is in reach.

Team Slugging

When you look up before May 1 and realize Allen is slugging 40 points better than he did last year, Skelton 220 points better and Westburg nearly 200 points better — all while Mangum is threatening to set a career high in doubles — you probably think this team has a shot at rewriting the team record books. You would be right.

Here’s a list of team records this offense could threaten:

 - Doubles. The record, 157 by the 1989 team, they averaged 2.3 doubles per game; this team is averaging 2.46. The 1989 team did play 68 games, meaning this year’s squad would have to hit like this through a Super Regional, but 142 doubles is good enough to crack the top 5 in school history. Only two teams have hit 150, 1989 and 1999 (156).

 - Runs/runs per game. The records are 633 set by the 1997 team and 9.5 set by the 1999 team; this year, they’re averaging 8.5 per game. If it ended at 8.5 it would be good enough for fifth in school history in runs per game, since only four teams have finished north of 9 (1999, 1997, 1989 and 1983). Holding this 8.5 runs per game pace of the 68 games last year’s team played would ended it at 582, good for fourth in school history. Only two Bulldog teams have cracked 600 runs: 1997 and 1989.

(It’s a somewhat similar chase in team RBI: at 7.6 RBI per game, if done over the 68 games last year’s team played, it would be one of just four Bulldog teams to end a season with more than 500.)

 - Home runs, admittedly, is going to be a stretch. With 50 in 45 games (1.1 per game), it would have to play 68 games at this pace just to get to 75, which is still two short of the fifth-place 1981 team that hit 77.

 - And for those interested in sheer win total, here’s the record book listing for that: 54 (1989), 51 (2013), 50 (1985, 1990), 47 (1997) and 46 (1981). This year’s Bulldogs are 36-9.

Mangum's historic day and the people who most enjoyed it — everyone but him

By Brett Hudson

STARKVILLE — Saturday’s second-inning single was a moment 1,152 days in the making, beginning with Jake Mangum’s first hit as a Bulldog on March 1, 2016. An otherwise meaningless single in a 14-0 Tuesday night win over Alcorn State is now one of 354 hits off Mangum’s bat, more than any player in the history of college baseball’s most powerful conference.

It was the most historic moment of a career that includes a SEC batting title, countless All-SEC and All-American honors, an Omaha appearance and his name all over the Mississippi State record books.

Jake Mangum’s response to the moment: “I’m really glad that’s over.”

In a way, that’s fitting. Mangum did start the season 77 hits behind Eddy Furniss’ former SEC record of 352. Mangum has never finished a MSU season with fewer than 84 hits and finished his junior season with 101. The senior season he chose to play for one last shot at team glory has been defined from the beginning by his chase of one particular individual record among many he can claim.

His 353rd hit ended that chase, freeing him of the daily chatter. He was a good sport in the moment — recognizing the hat tips from the dugout and the 9,572 in attendance, removing his helmet in salute, keeping the ball he hit and the base he rounded — but truth be told, Mangum will enjoy the post-record part of his senior season more than the chase.

Saturday’s history was more for those around Mangum than it was for him.

It was for Luke Alexander, the shortstop-turned-first base coach, the first person to embrace him after he broke the record. Alexander was with Mangum when they were the youngest players on a travel team, batting 8th and 9th together. Alexander was with Mangum when they went to a MSU camp in 8th grade, when both got asked to stay late and Mangum waited outside of John Cohen’s office as Alexander received a scholarship offer.

“Luke’s been joking the past couple of days whenever I get it done he’s going to give me a big hug,” Mangum said. “I’m really happy to be there and do it with him.”

Mangum’s day of history was for Stacy Mangum and the dozens of family members and family friends that surrounded her as Jake broke the record. Jake called his mother, “the most genuine woman I’ve ever met,” and — correctly — said everyone at Dudy Noble Field knows Stacy Mangum. 

Hit No. 353 was for his cousin, Taylor Nowell, who Mangum says is a big reason why he chose MSU out of Jackson Prep. Nowell, who swore up and down through high school he has a cousin who’s really good at baseball, left Dudy Noble Field Saturday with a cup of infield dirt in his hand, his own souvenir of the day.

Jake thought of his father, John, who Jake remembers driving from an Atlanta baseball tournament through a Sunday night while Jake and Stacy slept, to get the family home for Monday morning. One of many sacrifices the family made to get Jake here. (Not that John is sentimental at the moment. There are two people pleased to see the record chase end not for the history made, but for the end of pomp and circumstance: Jake Mangum and John Mangum.)

Jake Mangum’s day for the record books was for all of the people that kept him out of the locker room until 5 p.m. after a game that ended at 3:35. For the youth baseball teams with baseballs to sign, for the outfield loungeholders with banners to behold, for the hangers-on in the Left Field Lofts that included former Diamond Dawg Wes Rea that watched him trot across the outfield for more autographs and more pictures.

Jake made the path to this moment look easy — even in his 101-hit season last year, he didn’t reach the 79 hits he has today until the final weekend of the regular season. It may have looked easy, but he says it was not.

“Hitting with that in the back of your head, it’s really hard,” he said. “No matter how locked in you are on the game, no matter how locked in you are in that moment, it’s hard stepping into the box knowing you’re one hit away, two hits away. It’s tough.”

On April 27, 2019, Jake Mangum gave so many people the moment they’ve been waiting for. Then he emerged from the locker room to a Saturday sunset and the moments he’s been waiting for: the final weeks of his senior season, when the college baseball community will join him in counting wins, not hits.

Full Count, Week 10: 3 Thoughts from the Arkansas series, 2 Hot Relief Pitchers

By Brett Hudson

Mississippi State saw the bad end of a sweep for the first time this season, yet still is one of six SEC West teams within two games of each other. The race is on, folks, and here are some thoughts on the team as it takes on the final four weeks of that race.

Three Thoughts from the Series

Aberrations cost State the series

In Friday’s 12-5 loss, a Bulldog pitching staff that was allowing 2.84 walks per game inexplicably issued 16 free passes. Not only was it the first time the staff issued 10 or more walks in a game, it was just the third time this year they allowed more than six.

File that Friday loss under Unlikely To Repeat Itself.

On Saturday, Arkansas starting pitcher Connor Noland — who had never gone more than 5 innings as a Razorback — pitched 7.2 scoreless, allowing four hits and no walks. Maybe avoiding facing Mangum yet another time factored into it, but frankly, Noland could have gone longer (he only threw 89 pitches) had he not collected the win in the midweek game before the series.

File that Saturday loss under Unlikely To Repeat Itself.

For Dogpile listeners out there, you may remember my closing thought being on the lack of proven pitching depth Arkansas has, thus Mississippi State’s primary objective being to take advantage of that. Two aberrations made that objective a moving target this weekend — not quite the beginning of a crisis.

Checking in on DH musical chairs

Designated hitter/pinch hitter has intrigued me this season, and has from the beginning, because there are so many respectable options for so few potential at-bats.

There was a stretch earlier this month where it was almost entirely Brad Cumbest and Josh Hatcher, but the coaching staff seems to be diversifying a little bit. Hayden Jones had five at-bats in the first two weeks of April, but got two in the Arkansas series and got his first hit of the month; also in that series, Landon Jordan got at-bats in consecutive games for the first time since two midweek games over a month ago and Luke Hancock — who got 10 at-bats in the first nine weeks of the season — got four last week.

It’s possible this is just a countermove to the facts that Cumbest is hitless in his last nine at-bats and Hatcher has one hit in his last 11. But if it’s more than that, the intrigue in the DH/PH roles has arguably never been this high.

SEC championship in reach — for now

Another nod to Dogpile listeners here. Those of you that listen will remember the path I set out for MSU starting this second half of the SEC schedule: take one of three in every road series, take two of three in every home series and the team gets to 17-13; steal a game or two here or there and with the right amount of help, it could be enough to win the West or the SEC outright.

Since when is baseball that clean and easy? I figured it would go a little differently than that for MSU, if it were to end this regular season with some sort of championship. Seeing the results of this weekend was a little jarring, but I wanted to see if this is out of the norm. Turns out most SEC champions hit a stretch this like:

 - 2018 Florida, State fans should remember it well: the Bulldogs swept Florida in Starkville to end the regular season. Didn’t stop those Gators from making it to Omaha.

 - 2017 Florida and 2017 LSU. Florida got swept to start the SEC schedule and LSU started 5-5. Both finished 21-9, winners of their respective divisions.

 - 2016 Mississippi State got swept by Texas A&M at home, and 2015 Vanderbilt (20-10) lost consecutive SEC series to Ole Miss and South Carolina.

To go back to the headline above this section, here’s why I stipulate the hopes are alive for now: most of those teams rebounded in impressive fashion. 2015 Vanderbilt came back to sweep a series with a ranked Missouri and the 2016 Bulldogs came back to take two of three in Baton Rouge are two good examples. MSU has that opportunity hosting SEC East leader Georgia this weekend, and history suggests it needs to put up a couple of wins to stay in the hunt.

Two Relief Pitchers On Fire

Colby White

His last six appearances: 6.1 innings, two hits and three walks allowed, no runs, 11 strikeouts. That’s a WHIP of 0.789 and only two of those appearances were against non-conference opponents.

MSU is getting what it wanted out of this Pearl River CC product — one inning of dominance every time he’s called upon.

Jack Eagan

Yes, he was also part of the walk problem in Fayetteville, but check this out: he’s pitched 5 innings against SEC foes, allowing two hits, two earned runs and striking out seven. When he hits the strike zone a little more (six walks in his last three appearances, 6 innings total), he is the oh-so-useful additional left-handed weapon. And what college baseball team couldn’t use another one of those?

Jared Liebelt's baseball revival: Xbox and a summer of nothing has him on top

By Brett Hudson

STARKVILLE — The dream season that was for the 2018 Mississippi State baseball team wasn’t much of one for Jared Liebelt. While the Bulldogs were pulling countless episodes of improbable heroics on the way to Omaha, Liebelt was along for the ride as a pitcher who dreaded the act of pitching.

It was more than just the 13.15 ERA the junior righty allowed in his first season out of Waubonsee Community College (Sugar Grove, Illinois). It was the process that got him there: paralysis by analysis, unable to relax mentally and enjoy the act of pitching as he had in years prior.

“I wasn’t having fun at all,” Liebelt told Matt Wyatt Media. “It got to a point where I was dreading pitching, having to go out there, because I had lost all confidence and I didn’t know what to think when I went out there.”

Liebelt had to find a way out of that mental rut. He had a spot with a team in the Minnesota Northwoods League, a collegiate wood-bat league, but instead he went home to more or less drop baseball completely. Time previously spent thinking about baseball and working on baseball was spent playing video games with friends.

After months away from the game, Liebelt came back to Starkville and immediately established himself as one of MSU’s best relief pitchers.

That’s what Liebelt has been through 38 games in 2019: 26.1 innings in 17 appearances with a 2.73 ERA and a WHIP of 0.949. The same man who hit as many batters as he struck out last season (seven) has now logged 15.2 innings against SEC teams with just four earned runs allowed (2.30 ERA).

Liebelt’s secret to baseball success was coming face-to-face with life without baseball.

* * *

It was near the end of last season — when Liebelt’s performance had more or less taken him out of the game, only pitching once after April 18 — that he diagnosed his issue. As his sophomore season at Wausonbee CC continued, MLB Draft attention came his way and scouts followed, he started pressuring himself to an extreme. He wasn’t playing the game to enjoy it; he went through every motion trying to impress someone.

“It led to me putting a lot of pressure on myself, and then coming here where it’s a big environment, big history, huge expectations, in my mind, I put even more pressure on myself,” he said. “It was just a mental thing last year; physically, I don’t think anything changed, I didn’t change my mechanics at all.

“When I got out there, I was in my head with my mechanics. I was thinking about my mechanics while I was out there, and that’s never a good thing. Is my leg lift too high, am I drifting, am I getting to the right position, is my arm dragging behind, and I was doing that every pitch. It was terrible. It wasn’t fun, at all.”

Liebelt had made peace with his results as a new coaching staff was evaluating them. His meeting with new head coach Chris Lemonis came with the news he was expecting — he was no longer on scholarship. Liebelt even told Lemonis he was not surprised.

Liebelt asked Lemonis if he would have a spot to come back and make the team; Lemonis said yes. With that, Liebelt went back home to Aurora, Illinois, where he would rehab a minor knee injury to be 100 percent for the fall. In his first week or two back home, he assured his parents he wanted to return to Mississippi State — “If I’m going to play college baseball, that’s where I want to be at.” — and a call with assistant coach Jake Gautreau set the plan in motion.

Jared Liebelt

Liebelt knew he could call the hitting coach — the one holdover from the previous staff — for a straight answer. Liebelt told Gautreau he would understand if the new coaching staff wanted its hand-picked players in the fold and asked him a simple question: if I perform well in the fall, will I be on the team? Gautreau assured him he would, and assured him of his belief that Liebelt can return to that.

From there, Liebelt went full-speed into the most casual offseason any college athlete has ever had.

“I didn’t think about baseball at all,” Liebelt said. “I wasn’t working out or throwing, thinking about getting ready for whatever, I was just doing it. When the time came to come back to school, I was like, “Alright, I’m ready to go enjoy this. If it goes like last year, I don’t really want to be playing baseball anyway.’

“It was comforting that I had come to terms that if that’s where my skill level is at, it’s not something I’m interested in doing anyway.”

He played Xbox with friends. He would make the two-hour trip to St. Ambrose University in Iowa to see his girlfriend. He travelled to see family in Wisconsin. Occasionally he would play catch or workout with his friend Jake Smith, a pitcher for Madison College rehabbing from Tommy John, but it was for accompaniment with a friend more than the baseball activity.

By resetting his mindset on the sport completely, he freed himself of the pressures of the next level. If the upcoming senior season were the last baseball he would ever play, he was prepared for that.

“I’m just going to try to enjoy it, whether it’s my last year of baseball or not,” Liebelt said. “I think that helped a lot, too, feeling like I was here to enjoy it, I wasn’t here to make it to the next level or impress people. I was just here to have fun, and that kept snowballing in a good way to gaining a lot of confidence and feeling like I can dominant whenever I’m out there.”

When he returned to Starkville, mentally refreshed, he came upon a pitching coach with a perfect plan for him.

* * *

The new pitching coach, Scott Foxhall, saw the numbers. He admits they were, “not pretty”; luckily for Liebelt, they aren’t the only stop Foxhall makes when he takes over a new staff.

Next, he went to Liebelt’s video from the 2018 season, where he saw Liebelt’s arm slot: it’s low, almost low enough to be considered sidearm. Foxhall likes having right-handers with different arm slots, and that was a plus for Liebelt in Foxhall’s mind.

The last step in that information-gathering process also helped.

“I try to get some anecdotes, and (Gautreau) is the one you go to for the anecdotes since he was here,” Foxhall said. “I go to him and his first impression was, I think a (fall) scrimmage game and (Gautreau) said he turned around and said, ‘Who is that guy? I think he’s going to be really good.’ Jake was impressed.”

Liebelt came back to MSU in the fall with a fresh mind and did so to a pitching coach eager to find his potential. Then Liebelt, possibly unwittingly, gave Foxhall the keys to unlocking that potential.

“One of the things with Jared’s personality is he’s very organized in his mind and he’s very routine-oriented, and he was not shy about telling me that,” Foxhall said. “We probably put together the most comprehensive routine for him than I did with anybody else on the staff. He wanted that and he followed it. There were a couple of times where it was raining, I called and he said, ‘I’ll find a way to get it in.’ He programmed himself, this is what I’m going to do every day.

“That’s what Jared is, he’s a perfectionist scientist. He builds his throw up from the first exercises that he does every day. Some of the drills concentrate on lower half, some concentrate on hand break, some concentrate on the finish. It’s probably about five to 10 minutes worth of drill work he does. He throws the plastic balls against the wall and each drill he does serves as a checkpoint for his mechanics. It allows him to be more mindless about his mechanics when he’s throwing on the mound.”

All the pieces came together pretty quickly in the fall. Foxhall started throwing him one inning at a time, testing his theory of Liebelt’s usefulness as a change-of-pace arm slot guy. In his experience, pitchers with lower arm slots recover quicker from outing to outing, so Liebelt pitched more frequently than most. Each one-inning outing built the coaching staff to its conclusion: Liebelt is far more than an odd arm slot guy.

“Over the course of the fall he showed that he wasn’t just a different look guy, that he was a real pitcher,” Foxhall said. “He had real command, he has a real slider and a real changeup, so he has a three-pitch arsenal: by my definition, a pitcher.”

* * *

Of course the Brewers fan in Liebelt goes straight to Josh Hader.

There are other examples of this role, brought to popularity by Andrew Miller in his postseason run with the Cleveland Indians: the role of the reliever used whenever the high-leverage situation presents itself. It bucks the trend of the closer, the best bullpen arm saved for the ninth inning; if a more important situation arises before then, why not go to the best arm?

Liebelt’s usage has shades of that Hader/Miller role, even if it doesn’t have a traditional name.

“I don’t think I really can define the role. I do remember him saying that he liked having defined roles. At the beginning of the year it was more I would be the seventh inning guy, Barlow or Colby (White) gets eight and (Cole Gordon) gets nine, but as the year progressed it’s kind of turned into whenever I’m most needed. It’s been a whole variety of different situations.

“I like feeling like I’m that guy, whenever I’m needed is when I’m going in. Just based off of how they’ve used me — we haven’t really had a conversation about it — but how they’re using me gives me that feeling that they have that trust in me to get it done in big situations.”

One of his more popular roles is immediately following Ethan Small. Foxhall likes the difference in delivery with those two, forcing batters to go from Small’s overhand left-handed delivery to Liebelt’s nearly sidearm right-handed pitches. That one-inning change-of-pace is still used in those cases, but Liebelt has also finished games, gone long or both: he has three saves this year, two against SEC foes, and all of those saves spanned at least 2.2 innings. He closed the final 2.2 innings of the Florida win that clinched series and the final 3 innings of the rubber match at Tennessee.

This is the product of Liebelt loving baseball again. The game consumes his life once more — this time in a good way, like it did when he was bursting onto the scene at Waubonsee, hitting 90 mph for the first time, then hitting 94 for the first time on the way to the JUCO World Series. The summer away from baseball has Liebelt in a good place if baseball ends for him when MSU’s season ends in June, but why would it?

“Obviously I’m not performing like (last year),” Liebelt said, “and I’m enjoying it a lot more.”

Full Count, Week 9: 3 Players Worth Highlighting, 2 Things to Watch in SEC Chase

We’re halfway through the conference schedule and Mississippi State is tied for first. That means this team has something going for it, and we’ll discuss those pieces both here and on Dogpile, your favorite baseball podcast.

3 Players Worth Highlighting

Marshall Gilbert

His last four games, all of them starts: 4-for-10, 3 RBI, 2 homers, 4 walks. This production at the plate comes after only starting five times in the first seven weeks of the season — and still hitting .300 in inconsistent playing time.

Furthermore, Gilbert is looking mighty comfortable at third base for a guy who has spent his MSU career as a catcher, simply keeping loose in the infield on batting practice ground balls.

I did ask Chris Lemonis about Gilbert after the Sunday game and he said Gilbert has what it takes to be an everyday third baseman, yet he still expects some rotation there (Gunner Halter being the other guy) for matchup purposes. But later on, when I asked him about designated hitter and his personnel decisions there, he said he will roll with a hot hand when one presents itself. Gilbert could grow into that at third base given a couple more games.

Elijah MacNamee

Let’s run through what MacNamee has done since March 1, shall we?

 - Rolled up a 12-game hit streak, multiple hits in seven of those games and six of the 20 hits in that streak going for extra bases. He drove in 13 runs in those 12 games.

 - The game in which that hit streak broke? He walked three times. He kept walking (currently leads the team 28 of them in 37 games) and put together another 10-game hitting streak, amassing a 28-game reached base streak.

Photo by Aaron Cornia, Mississippi State Athletics

 - More recently, he had at least one hit and at least RBI in all three games of the Alabama series.

That’s all, just constantly reaching base, constantly hitting and doing so for six weeks. Casual.

Peyton Plumlee

My hope is Plumlee’s days of being the forgotten man are over. His combined line in his last two SEC starts: 10.1 innings, 6 hits and 5 walks allowed, 1 earned run allowed (0.87 ERA), 5 strikeouts. He even covered those 10.1 innings in 142 pitches, so it’s not out of the question that his current effectiveness could go out to 7 innings if his pitch count is allowed to get up to the 90s.

Ethan Small is undeniably awesome (a lot of talk about him on Dogpile, our baseball podcast, be on the lookout for that Monday afternoon) and JT Ginn sliding right back into the fold with ease gives this rotation the same 1-2 from before. But Plumlee being this rock solid as the current third option gives the Bulldogs a luxury that is beyond rare in college baseball.

2 Things to Watch in SEC Chase

(A quick note: these are the series that don’t involve MSU. The Bulldogs clearly have their chance to heavily influence the SEC chase with their next four series: at Arkansas April 18-20, Georgia April 26-28, at Texas A&M May 2-4 and Ole Miss May 10-12. But I figure you’ll be watching those anyway, so here are a couple of things outside of that to be tracking.)

Texas A&M at Ole Miss, April 25-27

Right before both teams host MSU in consecutive weekends, these two play each other. Texas A&M is 9-5-1 with a manageable series at South Carolina before the Ole Miss series; the Rebels are 9-6 with Auburn in between them and hosting Texas A&M.

This is especially true if Texas A&M takes the series with the Rebels, but in any case, this series should make the picture much more clear for MSU in terms of who its top competition in the SEC West will be. And that competition could be on tap for MSU right after this series, if the Aggies win it before hosting the Bulldogs.

Vanderbilt

Given all but one team in the SEC West has a winning record in league play, it’s understandable that so much attention is being paid to the division, but Vanderbilt is far from out of this picture.

Second in the SEC East right now behind Georgia, the Commodores actually have a pretty favorable draw to stack up some wins: at Alabama (4-11), Auburn (8-7), at South Carolina (4-11), Missouri (7-7-1) and at Kentucky (4-11) to finish. With that tame of a schedule and just a one-game deficit to Georgia, I won’t be surprised to see Vandy atop the SEC East and as MSU’s potential competition for the SEC regular season title.

What Matters and What Doesn't from Mississippi State's spring practice

For me, spring football practice is like trying to get back in shape by playing some pickup basketball: it’s always good to do it every few months or so, just to sharpen the skill a little bit, but the real victory is to do it without getting hurt. If you can execute the motions a few times and live to tell the tale, you’ve done good.

That doesn’t make the weeks of spring practice riveting television — for the most part. On occasion there are a couple of things that can happen in spring that might actually prove useful — in a sea of things that are mostly not useful. Let’s separate the two, shall we?

What Matters: Reps for Interior O-Line

Those of you that followed my Film Reviews on Twitter during football season probably saw much more interior offensive line play than you were anticipating, because that group was just so good last year. Losing two pieces from it (center Elgton Jenkins and right guard Deion Calhoun) is no small development, and these 15 practices in the new unit are big.

They’re important for Darryl Williams, who is taking over at center and has a new set of responsibilities. They’re important for Stewart Reese, whose move to right guard is going to come with the expectation of no regression there, fair or not, because he is the veteran moving into that spot. Dareuan Parker also needs the time to playing alongside them — those guys have everything down mentally, and every rep he can get at their side to get up to their speed is a valuable one.

It’s pretty common to see offensive line position battles extend a few weeks into fall camp, which does no favors for chemistry once they set that starting five. Things being as calm as they seem to be on that unit at the moment sure helps — it doesn’t guarantee reaching a ceiling that last year’s unit had, but it at least gives them a better chance than a unit that’s forced to come together in the final week of August.

What Doesn’t Matter: What Quarterbacks Did

There are 110 days in between the Maroon & White Game and August 1, when we can reasonably expect fall camp to truly be up and running. For the most part, football players are on campus for most of those days, doing little more than working out with each other. That’s where you hear the stories of quarterbacks who are true leaders organizing their own 7-on-7 sessions, scheduling times to work with their receivers on routes, maybe see a private quarterback coach to work on their own footwork, etc.

That being the case, spring is used for the development of offensive understanding — especially in MSU’s current situation, being Year Two under Joe Moorhead after Year One showed some offensive holes to address.

Ultimately, these guys are going to be judged on if they can complete passes in September, not March and April. It may not give you much room for hot takes and Twitter nonsense/overreactions, and it’s impossible for us to evaluate now or even accurately project in the future, but it’s the truth. Deal with it as you please.

What Matters: Safety Reps

This is one that makes this list because of how MSU is approaching this.

Given what C.J. Morgan did late last year when thrown into the fire due to injury, it would’ve been easy to pull a plug-and-play here for Mark McLaurin and Johnathan Abram, simply finding an answer for the safety position Morgan isn’t playing and rolling with it.

What MSU is actually doing is whatever it needs to do to get its best five defensive backs on the field. At the two safety positions, that currently means Marcus Murphy and Jaquarius Landrews, both of them having mostly played Nickel last year, at the safety positions. It’s a good move from an athleticism standpoint — and both of those players have the acumen to handle that kind of move well — now they just need as m much experience as they can get back there.

The spring gave them a little, which is useful. In a year with such heavy transition on the interior of the defensive line, being strong up the middle at the second and third levels could be crucial, and seeing now Murphy and Landrews have a head start, if this is the final answer.

Full Count, Week 8: 3 Lineup Spots of Contention, 2 Underappreciated Elements

Super Bulldog Weekend is upon us and Starkville will be flooded with people who are forced to make their trips to Starkville less regular than others. They’re coming to town at a time when the team is clearly good, but also containing a few interesting questions to answer with its recent daily lineup shuffling. Let’s run through those things, shall we?

3 Lineup Spots of Contention and State’s Options

No. 2 and No. 3

Jake Mangum is Mississippi State’s career hits leader and is on pace to become the SEC’s hits leader by the end of the month. He won the batting title as a freshman, had the best season of his career as a junior — and is still on pace to be better this year. The No. 1 spot is fine.

Elijah MacNamee is on a 10-game hit streak and a 28-game reached base streak. He has twice as many multi-hit games (14) as he has hitless games (seven). The cleanup spot is fine.

What happens in between them is where MSU is looking for stability.

It’s probably going to be some combination of Jordan Westburg, Tanner Allen and Rowdey Jordan, but three different combinations were used in the Tennessee series. Up until now it’s been pretty self-explanatory based on which ones were hitting and which ones were not at the given time, but now there’s no telling what to do with Tanner Allen.

Allen’s slump led to his bump down the lineup (which didn’t seem to help matters), but then they move him up in the lineup a day after going 0-for-4 just to see him deliver three hits and a homer. It would have been easy to have some Jordan-Westburg combo in those spots until Allen flashed some life up in the order.

Admittedly, this is kind of a tame “problem,” if you even want to label it as such. It’s possible this is a controlled chaos situation, where the guys move where they belong based on recent production and do so all season, fluctuating back and forth comfortably; maybe the production eventually settles and they can fit one slot for the final six weeks.

Really, it’s more of a convenience thing for the coaching staff. Finding something steady in those spots would surely make the day-to-day a little easier on everyone.

2nd base

There is obvious potential in Gunner Halter’s hit tool, but it’s simply not coming through right now: he’s got one hit in his last 16 at-bats, with seven of those 15 outs coming on strikeouts. This is the same guy that recognized defense as his weakness relative to his bat in the fall; thus, the bat is what has to keep him in the lineup every day.

(I feel it’s important to take a quick moment to point this out: fielding percentage is far from a perfect stat, but it’s as good as we can get in college baseball, and Halter’s [.936] is favorable to Justin Foscue’s [.906] and Jordan Westburg’s [.922]. We’re going to stay transparent here, no exceptions.)

MSU’s options:

 - Halter hits again. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? This is the most attractive option for several reasons: it makes the bench deeper (it can’t be as deep if Halter is on it because he’s slumping), the double play combo of six weeks stays in tact and Foscue can stay at the position he’s played for his entire State career.

 - Foscue at 2nd and Marshall Gilbert at 3rd. This is nice because it gives a current .300 hitter (Gilbert) more ABs, after just 40 through MSU’s first 33 games. It also lessens the log jam at catcher and maybe you could use Halter as a pinch runner. It’s dependent on both moving parts being competent in their new positions, but it’s realistic, to say the least.

 - Landon Jordan takes over at second base. This one’s pretty clean, too: if he hits and he defends, all’s well that ends well.

 - Finally, let me work through this one. Say Josh Hatcher starts hitting well (at first as a DH), Tanner Allen gets going again and more struggles at second base prompt the switch: Allen from first to second, Hatcher in at first. First of all, how fun would it be to have Hatcher and Cumbest in the same lineup? To be clear, I think this option is unlikely, but it is one, and I think it’s the last realistic one. There may be some other ideas floating around out there in Crazy Fan Twitter, but this is the option that meets the line between unrealistic and possible.

DH

Bulldog designated hitters (and the pinch hitters in their place) went 1-for-10 against Tennessee, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying: those 10 ABs were spread through four guys.

The options are exactly what you think they are: Hatcher, Cumbest, Landon Jordan, Hayden Jones and Gilbert (when he’s not playing third or catching). There’s a button to be pressed here to get this thing clicking, and this coaching staff has shown no hesitation in pressing buttons and changing things.

Two Underappreciated Elements

Friday night fireworks

The four Friday night starters MSU has faced — Florida’s Tommy Mace, Auburn’s Tanner Burns, LSU’s Zack Hess and Tennessee’s Garrett Stallings — have this combined line against the Bulldogs: 23.1 innings, 25 hits, nine walks (1.457 WHIP), 15 earned runs allowed (5.79 ERA).

Keep in mind: even with those performances, two of them (Stallings and Burns) are still top 15 in the SEC in ERA. The Bulldogs are taking awesome pitchers and beating them up.

Trysten Barlow

Folks, this lefty just had his worst outing of the season and he still has the best ERA on the team among pitchers with at least 1 inning pitched.

His ERA jumped by over a run and it’s still under 2.00.

23 strikeouts, 1 walk. If I saw that in a video game I would say it’s not realistic, and Barlow is doing it in the SEC.

His seven appearances against SEC competition: 8.2 innings, seven hits, two earned runs allowed (2.08 ERA), no walks, 11 strikeouts. And with the two rough outings Jack Eagan had before he got back on track against Tennessee, Barlow was effectively the only lefty out of the pen. This guy deserves public acclaim for what he’s doing.

Full Count, Week 7: 2 Reasons for Frustration, 2 Reasons to Calm Down

After a series as disappointing as that one against LSU, there is going to be some groaning surrounding a team that had previously been dominant. That being the case, we’re going to address what is real and what is not, and we’re only doing two of each (as opposed to three of one and two of the other) just to be fair.

Two Places to Be Disappointed

Defense

Seven errors in a weekend just ain’t good. The team was already in the lower half of the SEC in fielding percentage (.970) going into that Saturday game in which it added three more errors; Vanderbilt had 15 errors all season entering Saturday, and MSU almost had half of that in three games.

For a team with aspirations as high as this one’s, the defensive performance we saw this weekend — if sustained for any significant period of time — can prevent them from reaching those goals, and they know that. It’s likely to be a big emphasis for them going forward, but I’m stopping short of a full-on crisis, for reasons we’ll get into later in this post. 

Tanner Allen

That awesome opening weekend was quite the moment, but it’s a distant memory at this point. Since then he’s hit .211 and his doubles per at-bat pace in that span is slightly below what it was for his entire freshman season. It’s not like he’s disappeared entirely — he did have two hits with two RBI in the Southern Miss rubber match, plus 2-for-5 in both of the wins at Florida — but the large sample size is clearly not kind.

Here’s where I use the same refrain from Rowdey Jordan’s slump to start the year. Tanner Allen is not suddenly a bad hitter, he just has something to figure out, and I think he will. (On the optimistic side, it’s worth pointing out his strikeouts are way, way down. He struck out in 22.5 percent of his at-bats last year; this year, that number is 13.6 percent. Contact will eventually lead to hits for Allen.)

Two Places To Relax

Bullpen Performance

One bad weekend does not make a bullpen bad. Yes, the entire pitching staff allowing 13 walks over the weekend and seeing the ERA climb nearly half a run (2.92 to 3.34) is not desirable, but even after that, the top four relievers in innings pitched (Jared Liebelt, Brandon Smith, Cole Gordon and Trysten Barlow, in that order) still have a combined ERA of 3.36 and a WHIP of 1.076. The numbers may not be as dominant as they once were, but they’re not objectively bad, either.

If you take this weekend appearance by appearance, there were actually some good moments for the bullpen. Each of the Thursday relievers got MSU out of jams: Barlow inherited runners on first and second with no outs and retired three straight; Liebelt inherited the bases loaded with one out and ended the inning without allowing a run; Gordon came in after LSU scored three runs and recorded the final out of the inning to stop the bleeding.

All of them were stretched beyond the initial heroics to results not as strong, but that’s kind of a no-win situation for a coach. If you ride the hot hand but they give up hits, you’re criticized for not going to someone new to start a fresh inning; if you give someone else the clean inning and they struggle, you’re criticized for taking a hot hand off the mound. Plus, all three of those guys have shown the ability to go more than three outs strong this season, so I still find the ideology to be strong.

Now, I won’t pump sunshine forever. The next two opponents, Tennessee and Alabama, have team batting averages slightly worse than LSU’s — solely because LSU skyrocketed over the weekend. If runs continue pouring in against those two teams, then I’ll join in on the conversation of a subpar bullpen and what to do about it. But folks, the time for that conversation is not now.

Massive Defensive Overhaul

I’ve seen a lot of fans propose radical defensive shifts, personnel changes and both as ways to fix what the defense was this weekend, and I don’t think it’s quite time for that. Let’s go through some reasons why.

First, this kind of weekend does happen to teams sometimes. Last year’s Bulldogs committed eight errors in being swept by Vanderbilt, committed six in losing the series to Texas A&M and even committed six in the first three games of the Tallahassee Regional — you know, the regional they won on the way to Omaha.

Other teams of similar excellence also had stretches like this. Texas committed four errors in a two-game set with Arkansas, Washington committed eight in a four-game stint with Illinois State and Arkansas committed seven in the three-game Tony Gwynn Classic; all three of those teams made it to Omaha. Most teams have stretches like this, so I think it’s important to make sure this is more than just that bad stretch before they smash the reset button on the entire lineup.

The change I often see from fans on Twitter is getting Jordan Westburg out of shortstop in favor of Gunner Halter. Yeah, Westburg did not have a good weekend defensively, by his own admission, but hold your horses here folks. Halter said in the fall defense was not his strong suit, and frankly his defense at second base has not been as good as Hunter Stovall’s was. Yes, that’s probably an unfair standard to hold someone to, but if you’re going to unseat a shortstop for someone, wouldn’t you want them to exhibit that level of defense at their current position?

Furthermore, not all of this is simply misplaying balls. Two plays stick out in my mind: the two run-ins Rowdey Jordan was involved in, one collision with Jake Mangum and the one where his glove and Westburg’s hit each other, causing the ball to come out. That’s not a skill or misalignment thing, that’s a communication thing, and that’s exactly what Westburg said after the game. That can be fixed without going through all the potential fallout of a reboot.

If this kind of performance continues, then yes, there will be some moves that need to be made. Maybe my take of Tanner Allen providing more defensive value somewhere other than first base can finally be tested, among others. But I don’t think this weekend merits that yet. This needs to become more than a one weekend problem before it’s treated as a more than one weekend problem.

Full Count, Week 6: 3 Guys Taking Intriguing Roles, 2 Numbers to Know

3 Guys Taking Intriguing Roles

Brad Cumbest

It seemed pretty clear that the coaches saw something brewing for this dual-sport freshman, with 12 of his 17 at-bats coming since March 13. They wouldn’t have forced him into so many pinch-hit chances if they hadn’t, much less the Sunday start. But the way he’s produced (four hits against Auburn, two of them doubles) adds yet another interesting layer to what has been yearlong intrigue around the designated hitter role.

Josh Hatcher was smoking people to take a hold of the DH spot, but Auburn is heavy on left-handed pitching and the left-handed Hatcher had the understandable matchup issue. In the Friday game, when Auburn got 7 innings from right-handed pitching, Hatcher got two hits; Saturday, Auburn’s first 4.1 innings came from leftys and Hatcher struck out twice. Sunday, Auburn had 5.1 innings thrown by leftys and the right-handed Cumbest gave them three hits and an RBI for their trouble.

If Cumbest can continue to mash like this, especially against southpaws, then he makes himself a very attractive DH candidate to platoon with Hatcher. This development also makes it a pretty interesting conversation when you include the next guy.

Dustin Skelton

The junior catcher continues to hit, which of course is a good thing: six more hits in the Auburn series pushed his batting average up to .319, and his 17 RBI are already more than the 13 he had last year. But here’s what’s interesting about what Skelton did this weekend: he caught all three games.

Skelton’s bat is too good to take out of the lineup, that much is obvious. It used to be easy to rest his legs by sticking him at DH, allowing Hayden Jones or Marshall Gilbert to take a game and get their respectable bats some ABs in the process. But now, with Hatcher and Cumbest hitting this well and Landon Jordan still on the bench, maybe that DH spot isn’t available.

Is the only way for Skelton to be in the lineup daily to put his legs through the ringer and catch every single game? It may not stay this way for the duration, but I would argue it’s that way right now.

Jared Liebelt

There are countless advantages to having Friday and Saturday starters as good as Ethan Small and JT Ginn, but among them is little need for the bullpen on those days. That need is even smaller when MSU can turn to Jared Liebelt to fit whatever hole is necessary.

In both of MSU’s SEC weekends so far, the Bulldogs have made Liebelt the first man out of the bullpen on Friday and Saturday. Both times, Liebelt went a short stint in the Friday game and took a longer stretch on Saturday, taking 26 and 25 pitches to cover 2.2 and 2 innings and finish wins. There’s a lot of reasons why this role is interesting and effective.

First of all, it helps that Liebelt is getting the job done. The man’s got a 0.921 WHIP, he’s allowed two walks in 15.2 innings (think about that for a second) and his ERA over those two Saturday SEC outings is 1.93.

It also helps that he’s able to take crucial innings in Friday and Saturday games because, let’s not forget, this bullpen is deep. The way Liebelt’s been going right now, guys such as Cole Gordon, Colby White, Brandon Smith and others can keep themselves available for Sunday, when MSU may need strong bullpen arms to win a rubber match. The trickle-down effect of Liebelt taking big chunks of innings on Friday and Saturday is significant, and if this is his role for the season, this bullpen has a chance to be epic if he continues performing like this.

2 Stats You Should Know

Rowdey Jordan murders Auburn

The young man from Auburn has made a habit of killing his hometown school, and reversing his own fortunes as he does it.

Whoa, this is true. He entered last year’s Auburn series with a .191 batting average, went 3-for-8 against Auburn and ended the year hitting .321, leading an Omaha team in slugging.

Rowdey Jordan, Auburn Killer. https://t.co/XuuRrM1Mo3

— Brett Hudson (@Brett_Hudson) March 24, 2019

Then this year, Rowdey took a .167 batting average into the Auburn weekend and went 6-for-13 (.461).

Rowdey Jordan had 11 hits in the team’s first 21 games.

In his last 4 games, today’s ongoing game included? 7 hits.

— Brett Hudson (@Brett_Hudson) March 24, 2019

Rowdey Jordan’s career numbers against Auburn: 9-21 (.428), 8 RBI, four doubles.

Small and Ginn are ridiculous

They have combined to cover 25.1 innings with a 3.20 ERA and they’ve been efficient as they do it: they’ve covered at least 6 innings in each of their outings and neither of them have seen a 100th pitch. Their strikeout-walk ratio against SEC competition is 35-7.

They’re both top 10 in the SEC in batting average allowed (Small 7th, .154; Ginn 9th, .183) and innings pitched (Ginn T-4th, 38.1; Small 9th, 36). Small leads the league in strikeouts (58) and strikeouts looking (17); Ginn leads the league in wins (6).

As if there were any doubt: through two weeks, Mississippi State has the best starting pitching 1-2 in the SE