HOOVER, Ala. — As clapping and cheering resounded from Samford’s third-base dugout, Mississippi State players and coaches quietly backed their bags for the bus ride home.
After five straight Southeastern Conference losses, the Bulldogs came to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium on Tuesday in dire need of what coach Chris Lemonis called a “good feeling.”
Instead, they found another feeling altogether.
“Pissed,” Lemonis said. “I think we’re pissed. I think we’re heading home pissed, but we’ve been pissed for six weeks.”
Mississippi State’s 2022 season has been slipping off the tracks for even longer than that, and Tuesday’s 8-6 loss to Samford was another step toward a total derailment.
The defending national champions gave up two grand slams. They left 12 runners on base. And they lost to a Southern Conference team that only attained a .500 record by virtue of Tuesday’s win.
Then again, that’s par for the course for the Bulldogs over the past few weeks.
“It’s typical,” Lemonis said. “That’s what we’ve been doing lately.”
It was the case against LSU a month ago. Then at Missouri in late April. Then in a sweep by Florida at Dudy Noble Field.
Against the Gators, the Bulldogs couldn’t hold things down in the late innings; against Samford on Tuesday, MSU (25-24) fell behind from the jump.
Samford’s grand slams came in the first and third innings as the visiting Bulldogs quickly found themselves down 8-0.
“We’re digging out a hole,” Lemonis said. “We’ve got to learn how to start games and we’ve got to learn how to finish games on the pitching staff.”
Mississippi State righted the ship with five subsequent innings of scoreless relief. Freshman left-hander Cole Cheatham was excellent over three scoreless frames, and Drew Talley pitched two innings to finish things out.
But the damage was done.
Starter Mikey Tepper allowed a first-inning bomb to Maurice Hampton after two walks and a single. Tepper was responsible for two of the runners on base — both walks — when Andrew Bennett went deep in the third off Jackson Fristoe.
Mississippi State crawled back, but its pace was too slow to overtake Samford. The home team got its revenge after being slotted into last year’s Starkville Regional as the No. 4 seed and losing to MSU in the first game of the event.
Freshman starter Will Lynch, who came into the game with an 11.03 ERA, made it through 4 2/3 innings as MSU managed just four runs despite six hits and four walks. The Bulldogs hit into two double plays in the game — Hunter Hines in the third and Logan Tanner in the sixth.
But unlike a Luke Hancock scorcher for a twin killing against Florida that Lemonis used as an example, neither baseball was struck particularly well.
“These aren’t hammered balls,” Lemonis said. “These aren’t good at-bats. This is giving in to a pitcher who’s not competing, and it lets that guy get off the hook.”
Mississippi State let Samford off that proverbial hook countless times Tuesday. Kellum Clark grounded out to leave the bases loaded in the first inning. Lane Forsythe hit into a forceout with two aboard in the seventh. In the eighth, Clark — representing the go-ahead run — grounded out into the shift with two on and two out.
Still, Mississippi State got remarkably close given the early deficit it faced. RJ Yeager’s two-run single got the Bulldogs on the board in the fourth, and MSU scored in three of the next four innings.
That was in part thanks to the efforts of Cheatham and Talley on the mound. Cheatham, who dealt with COVID-19 and arm soreness early in the year, said the shutdown frames likely helped his team’s hitters.
“If they keep scoring, it just demoralizes us,” Cheatham said. “When we go out there and compete, it gives us hope.”
But Mississippi State couldn’t get it done. Clark’s groundout in the eighth ended a big threat, and the Bulldogs went down in order in the ninth.
MSU will head into a weekend series at No. 10 Texas A&M still searching for a late-season spark.
“Everybody has a job to do, and everybody has to do their job for us to play good baseball,” Lemonis said. “We just have too many holes. We’ll play good in this area, and then we’ll do something. It’s coming back to get us right now.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
