STARKVILLE — In between innings of his first career collegiate start, Landon Sims kept sneaking peeks at the scoreboard.
“Oh, wow,” Sims thought as the innings ticked by. “Getting closer to usual.”
Used exclusively as a reliever over 32 appearances in 2020 and 2021, Sims became the Bulldogs’ go-to bullpen arm by his sophomore season. Routinely coming in when the eighth or ninth inning rolled around, Sims was lights out, striking out 100 batters over 56.1 innings last year.
But he’d never had a moment like Friday.
The 2022 season will feature Sims in the weekend rotation for the first time at Mississippi State. And based off Friday’s stellar start, the Bulldogs couldn’t have waited any longer.
Sims blew past his career-high mark by three innings, pitching seven frames of nearly flawless baseball. He struck out 13 Long Beach State hitters, didn’t walk a single one and erred only once.
That mistake — a home run surrendered to the Dirtbags’ Kaden Moeller with two out in the seventh inning — cost Sims and the Bulldogs in a 3-0 defeat Friday. With the Bulldogs’ bats and Dudy Noble Field both deadly quiet, the star right-hander even took the loss. Not that he deserved it.
“I think I pitched well, but at the end of the day, the biggest stat of the day is if we win or lose, and we didn’t win,” Sims said after the game. “I think pretty much everything else doesn’t matter.”
He might be right, but his ability to transition seamlessly — so far — into a starter could work wonders for Mississippi State.
Sims’ velocity didn’t fall off a cliff. His strikeout stuff was still there. And he didn’t really seem to be getting all that tired.
“I felt strong,” Sims said. “I felt like my feet were under me.”
Sims set a new career high with 81 pitches after throwing 76 last season against Tulane. He pitched just 3.2 innings in that game, proving far more efficient Friday and conserving most of the Bulldogs’ bullpen.
Head coach Chris Lemonis said Sims went “a little farther than we thought” despite his relatively low pitch count. When the right-hander reached the pitch count range he hit in the final weekend of spring practice, it was time.
But Sims hadn’t shown many clear indications of faltering down the stretch. He struck out the first two batters of the seventh inning before Moeller “ambushed” a fastball to break the deadlock.
Even that pitch, Sims said, wasn’t a bad one. He insisted he’d throw it again if he could — presumably if the same result was not on the way.
Sims admitted his velocity dipped over the last 15 or 20 pitches, as he sat around 91 miles per hour toward the end of his outing. He was sitting 93-94 mph and touching 96 earlier on in the game.
And he still managed to rack up the strikeouts throughout his outing. Sims had either two or three strikeouts in each of the first four innings and set a career high in punchouts as well.
Sims got fired up after several of his strikeouts, but catcher Logan Tanner said he seemed more restrained than usual to help him conserve his energy.
“I think he went out there and he was great, and he competed really well, and I think his emotions were definitely in check,” Tanner said. “It was really good to see that.”
Overall, though? He was still the same old Landon Sims — just in a new role. And that’s just what Mississippi State needed.
“Nothing much really changes,” Tanner said. “He’s just out there a little bit longer; that’s about it.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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