STARKVILLE — Andy Cannizaro has been in baseball every year since his early childhood days of tee ball, and in recapping Mississippi State’s lengthy injury report Tuesday, he confidently said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”
MSU’s injury issues have been and remain well documented, and one of the most apparent impacts comes in how MSU has managed pitching late in weekends. Twice in a six-day stretch, MSU used center fielder Jake Mangum as the starter and pieced together the game with one- or two-inning appearances from five or more pitchers, a method Cannizaro is unlikely to abandon.
“We’re going to be doing the same thing for the foreseeable future,” he said.
That forseeable future continues with this weekend’s series against Tennessee.
The first instance came on March 14 in a win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Mangum started and gave MSU three perfect innings; MSU used a combination of Ryan Cyr, Andrew Mahoney, Trysten Barlow, Parker Ford and Spencer Price to pitch the final six innings, with Cyr being the only one to pitch more than two innings.
Mangum also started last Sunday’s game against Arkansas, pitching two innings and handing it over to a combination of Barlow, Riley Self, Graham Ashcraft, Mahoney, Price and Ryan Rigby to get through the remaining six innings. Self and Ashcraft were the only ones to record more than three outs.
Pitching coach Gary Henderson said he has experience in managing games that way, using the method himself with Kentucky in the 2008 Tucson Regional, and sees certain aspects of it that are easy to manage.
“You can script it out in terms of the right- and left-handed matchups, but you usually don’t script it out specifically,” Henderson said. “You can give them an idea of who’s going to be in the first half of the game and who’s going to be in the second half, you guys will have the left-handers and you guys will have the right-handers.”
While not all teams start such games with their center fielders on the mound, Henderson believes the approach is not uncommon: he believes the SEC has at least one team every year that resorts to such an approach. In Henderson’s experience coaching games to be pitched this way, this year included, he has found being upfront with pitchers about their roles for that day to be an effective practice.
The one thing that can unravel the day? Balls.
“It can be early easy if they throw strikes; it can be very challenging if they don’t,” Henderson said. “They don’t have two innings to find it, they have to be on, throwing low strikes and command a second pitch.
“They have to get three to six outs when they do that, because you’re not looking for anybody else to have extended outings.”
If and when MSU goes to the approach this weekend, it will hope to improve in that respect from its loss to Southern Miss Tuesday, in which it issued six walks after not reaching that threshold in any of its three games at Arkansas.
Necesity rooted in injury is the reason for MSU trying this setup, but Henderson sees it as having an unintended, pleasant side effect.
“There’s nothing wrong with going and getting 15 or 20 pitches as opposed to a bullpen or practice session. This can be much more productive for those guys,” he said. “I think it can be really good for the kids. There’s light at the end of the tunnel: go in, 15, 20 pitches, hopefully fewer than that. You’ve eliminated the unknown, you know you’re going to pitch tonight.”
One more unknown to be eliminated: the approach is not only likely to be used this weekend, but could be here to stay beyond it.
“I don’t anticipate there being any new pitchers that are going to come back,” Cannizaro said after Tuesday’s loss. “What we’re doing right now is what we’re going to have to do for the rest of the way.”
Notes
Cannizaro announced Cyr has been dismissed from the team for a violation of team rules. Cyr, a sophomore, last appeared on March 14. Cyr started in his first two appearances but gave up nine earned runs in six innings before making the final four appearances of his MSU career out of the bullpen.
On the injury front, MSU will be without second baseman Hunter Stovall (hamstring), Rigby (groin), pitcher Blake Smith (elbow) and catcher Elih Marrero (undisclosed off-the-field situation).
Konnor Pilkington will continue in his role as MSU’s Friday night starting pitcher, but the Saturday and Sunday spots are to be determined, Cannizaro said. Peyton Plumlee had been MSU’s Saturday starter for multiple weeks before last week’s outing at Arkansas, giving up five earned runs and five hits in 1 2/3 innings.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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