BATON ROUGE, La. — Seeking its first sweep of LSU (16-5, 1-2 SEC) in Baton Rouge since 1981, No. 3 Mississippi State (16-4, 2-1) dropped the final contest of its three-game set Sunday 8-3.
After spending the bulk of the weekend manufacturing runs with small ball and sac flies, the Bulldogs were largely tamed by a Tiger pitching staff that allowed just six hits and only eight baserunners on the afternoon.
But for as stagnant as the MSU offense was Sunday, it was another poor performance from hard-throwing Canadian starter Eric Cerantola that set MSU back early.
“He wasn’t throwing strikes. He hit a guy. Threw a ball to the backstop,” MSU head coach Chris Lemonis said. “So it wasn’t in the zone.”
In weeks past, Lemonis noted there’s a fine line between getting Cerantola his work versus winning ball games. Sunday, MSU’s skipper didn’t wait around.
Cerantola recorded just four outs before getting the quick hook. He painted 97 miles per hour on the radar gun in left-center, but allowed two earned runs, walked two, threw two wild pitches and a hit a batter.
Such is why Cerantola is such an enigma. Preseason prognosticators pegged him as the No. 50 player in MLB.com’s top 100 2021 MLB draft prospects due to his projectable frame and rocket launcher-type velocity. But for as electric as his stuff can be, Cerantola has been erratic at-best during his time in Starkville.
In four starts this season, he’s pitched past the third inning just once. The only time he surpassed that mark came against an Eastern Michigan team that sits 281st of 301 teams in the most recent RPI standings.
“We’ll reevaluate after the week, but (Cerantola) just wasn’t in the zone early in the game,” Lemonis said. “We have to make them earn it.”
With Cerantola struggling, MSU bridged the gap with 0.2 innings from Chase Patrick before shifting to recent Sunday starter Jackson Fristoe. After Saturday starter Will Bednar moved back onto the weekend against LSU as he recovered from injury, Fristoe became the odd man out, at least for a few days.
Sunday, the Kentucky native looked the part of a weekend arm. Mixing his speeds and location, he rang up six LSU batters in his four innings of relief.
As was the case in MSU’s first two starts of the trip from Christian MacLeod and Bednar, Fristoe, too, clamped down in the dicy moments. Tied at two and with runners standing at first and second in the fifth inning, he induced a grounder toward shortstop Lane Forsythe, who turned an inning-ending double-play to escape the jam.
Two batters after Gavin Dugas put a ball off the scoreboard in left field to give LSU a 3-2 lead in the sixth, Fristoe escaped a two-out, runner on situation with a dipping breaking-ball that fooled Hayden Travinski for his final strikeout of the afternoon.
“Other than the fact he has really good stuff as a true freshman, he doesn’t get bothered too bad,” second-year freshman third baseman Kamren James said of Fristoe. “He gets on the mound, whether it’s in Starkville or Baton Rouge making his first SEC appearance, it’s not like he’s rattled. He doesn’t get sped up like a lot of freshman would.”
Tre’ Morgan’s RBI double off MSU reliever Carlisle Koestler gave LSU a semblance of breathing room following Fristoe’s departure. Brody Drost then stretched things out with a two-run, no doubt home run that cleared the wall in right-center.
LSU shortstop Jordan Thompson then blew the doors off Sunday’s contest with a two-run double to the right-center gap to push the Tiger lead to five late.
“That starter (AJ Labas) did a good job holding our lineup to the bare minimum,” James said of why MSU struggled to match LSU offensively. “Then they brought some guys out of the pen that, I guess they were just doing something that just kept us off-balance. …We couldn’t get that big hit.”
Late runs and offensive struggles aside, Fristoe’s audition in Baton Rouge makes for an intriguing week in Starkville. Lemonis and his staff plan to meet Monday with an eye toward next weekend’s series with No. 1 Arkansas. Whether Cerantola gets his name called again against the Razorbacks, though, remains to be seen.
“Jackson pitched great,” Lemonis said postgame. “He hung the slider there in the sixth, but the batter before him I thought he pitched (Dylan) Crews great. Came out and gave us a competitive effort.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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