STARKVILLE — Brant Blaylock had no doubt: he had just hit his first collegiate home run. Mississippi State’s redshirt freshman left fielder couldn’t help but give a subtle flip of the bat as he watched it soar out of Dudy Noble Field.
“Maybe a little bit,” he said after Sunday’s win over Texas Tech, in which he hit the solo home run. “I enjoyed it a little bit, maybe more than I should have.”
He was not alone in enjoying opening weekend of Mississippi State baseball: Blaylock was one of six freshmen to make their MSU debut in the team’s first four games, in addition to five newcomers from junior college doing the same.
“We had a lot of guys this weekend have firsts for something: first hits, first outings, first time for stepping on the field,” freshman pitcher Riley Self said. “It was a big weekend for us freshman, redshirts and newcomers. I think it was big, and (Cannizaro) prepared us. He told us, ‘This is what to expect and you’re going to get playing time’.”
The reason for the fresh blood? Necessity.
“That’s what we got. We play who we have,” MSU coach Andy Cannizaro said. “We have a really young team; we tried to intrasquad scrimmage every day to get them involved in that competitive atmosphere every single day, knowing that opening weekend, those guys were going to be on the field.”
Self was one of the best freshmen to take the field, coming out of the bullpen twice to pitch a combined six innings, allowing just two hits and one earned run while striking out nine. Blaylock credited Cannizaro’s aforementioned ideology of everyday competition for his success and that of other newcomers.
“Practice, man. Our practices, we practice like we play,” he said. “Coach Cannizaro really gets us prepared for games and game-like situations. Putting yourself in that situation in practice gets you ready for the game situation. We were very calm and handled it very well.”
Blaylock ended the weekend with three RBIs on two hits. Freshman catcher Dustin Skelton registered his first start and his first hit; freshman pitcher Graham Ashcraft also made his first start, pitching four innings in MSU’s extra-innings win over Western Illinois.
Like Self, JUCO newcomer Jacob Barton made an impressive lengthy outing out of the bullpen, pitching 4 2/3 scoreless innings in Friday’s season opener and allowed just three hits.
“We’re young – we’re really young – but we’re really talented,” Cannizaro said. “Those guys are growing up every single game, every single day out on the field. To be able to come back against a really good Texas Tech team shows a lot about the character of these young kids.”
Another newcomer that impressed Cannizaro was Spencer Price, the sophomore transfer from Meridian CC with, “a plus breaking ball.” Price came on in extra innings against Western Illinois, recorded the final out of the 10th inning then pitched a scoreless 11th to record the win.
Self said the freshmen and newcomers did not make a show of getting on the field in such numbers in opening weekend.
“We knew what we had to get done. Everybody was just prepared for that,” he said. “All of us can step up in the big spots and that’s what we did.”
Among those freshmen, in a way, was their coach. Cannizaro was coaching his first weekend as a head coach, earning his first career win among other milestones.
“It was really cool, man. Really cool feeling,” Cannizaro said of his first win, Saturday over Western Illinois. “It’s a dream come true to be the baseball coach here at Mississippi State, to get that first win is a great feeling.”
He even got his first trip out to argue with an umpire.
“I was kind of thinking before the game about that, ‘I wonder how you know when is the right time to go out there?'” Cannizaro said. “When that happened, I was like, ‘What are we doing?’ It was an immediate reaction, I was halfway out there and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s how that happens’.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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