STARKVILLE — Just before Florida took the lead for good Saturday night against Mississippi State, a chorus of boos sounded resounded throughout Dudy Noble Field.
The boos weren’t for the Bulldogs. They were meant for home plate umpire Mark Winters and the officiating crew after an inconsistent strike zone, including two straight close pitches called balls in the top of the ninth. But they drowned out the action as the tension mounted in a 3-3 ballgame.
Then Florida made its move. Jac Caglianone’s double put the Gators on top. Kendrick Calilao doubled in two more runs. Ty Evans smacked a three-run home run.
By then, there were no more boos. Only silence.
For Mississippi State (25-22, 9-14 Southeastern Conference), Saturday’s 9-3 loss to Florida (28-18, 10-13 SEC) seemed to represent another stage of grief in a 2022 season getting further out of hand with every passing weekend as anger faded quickly into acceptance for Bulldogs fans in attendance.
“It’s been tough on our guys,” coach Chris Lemonis said. “We have a prideful fanbase. They know it, and they want to play well for them. It’s been a struggle here in the last week.”
The Bulldogs lost last weekend’s series to Missouri before dropping the first two at home to the Gators.
MSU’s season is far from over, but the hourglass Lemonis said was running out after Friday’s 8-6 loss is down to even fewer grains.
The Bulldogs have seven SEC games remaining and need to win at least five of them to secure an NCAA tournament berth that continues to seem more and more unlikely. Mississippi State’s final two regular-season series are at No. 13 Texas A&M and at home against No. 1 Tennessee.
“You’ve got to have a special weekend somewhere to be able to put yourself in a decent position,” Lemonis said.
For the second straight night, MSU had its chances but squandered nearly all of them. The Bulldogs left 10 men on base, including at least one in six different innings.
Mississippi State stranded two runners in the first inning and two in the sixth before leaving the bases loaded in a seventh inning that saw them tie the game at 3-3 but miss out on a chance for more.
The Bulldogs put the first two men on in both the fifth and sixth but failed to score each time. Luke Hancock hit into a double play and Logan Tanner lined out in the fifth.
In the sixth, Kellum Clark struck out before a pair of ground-ball outs ended the inning. Aaron Downs’ fielder’s choice moved Hunter Hines to third, but Lane Forsythe’s grounder to second left Hines there.
“Sometimes, we don’t have good at-bats; sometimes we have good at-bats and the ball’s not falling,” Lemonis said. “It’s a little bit of both. We can do a better job.”
Mississippi State equalized in the seventh on another double play from Hancock, and the Bulldogs went on to load the bases. Tanner singled, Hines walked, and Cumbest walked on four pitches, but Clark swung at all three pitches he saw and lined the third into the right fielder’s glove.
It was another hard-hit out in a key spot for MSU, which has become a theme since Sunday’s series finale at Missouri and in some ways all season.
“It’s kind of tough whenever you hit two balls that are easily over 100 (mph) off the bat,” third baseman Kamren James said. “It’s just unfortunate that the balls are going right at somebody.”
Florida had no such difficulty, though. Caglianone found grass in left center for a two-run double in the fifth inning to put Florida ahead, and his ninth-inning liner to left was misread by Cumbest and went over the head of the Bulldogs outfielder.
Calilao followed an intentional walk with a two-run two-bagger down the line in right, and Evans hit an opposite-field three-run shot as reliever KC Hunt unraveled in the ninth.
“KC was competing, just left a couple balls over the plate once we got some guys on,” Lemonis said.
Hunt was tagged with the loss after starter Preston Johnson allowed three runs in five innings and freshman Pico Kohn pitched two scoreless frames. Lemonis called Kohn’s outing “one of the best” in the Alabama native’s short college career.
But the Bulldogs couldn’t score enough to back either pitcher. All Mississippi State managed in the first six innings was a single by Tanner in the first and a double by Clark in the fourth.
Once again, though, it wasn’t enough.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
