BILOXI — Asked if Tuesday’s performance against Texas Tech proved he could start for Mississippi State going forward, Parker Stinnett smiled.
“I hope so,” he said.
The right-hander seemed determined to show it in his first start of the season against the Red Raiders on Tuesday at MGM Park in Biloxi.
Stinnett struck out a career-high 12 Red Raiders over five innings without allowing an earned run, and a nine-run fourth inning led No. 23 Mississippi State (7-6) over No. 17 Texas Tech (10-3) by an 11-5 score.
“I guess I just was ready to start a game,” Stinnett said. “I don’t really know.”
He helped the Bulldogs notch a key win after losing three of their past four games, including two out of three in last weekend’s series at Tulane. Mississippi State blew an eight-run lead in Saturday’s game and fell to 6-6 on the season with a 5-4 loss Sunday.
But the nearly 5,800 fans who watched the Bulldogs rout the Red Raiders in the first of a two-game series on the Gulf Coast would be hard pressed to pick up on MSU’s struggles.
“I think when you wear our uniform, you feel like you’re supposed to win every game, and we’ve had a tough little stretch,” Mississippi State coach Chris Lemonis said. “We’re trying to find ourselves as a team. Those kids, they wanted to come out and play well tonight.”
Mississippi State pounded 10 hits — including six of them in its massive fourth inning — en route to winning the midweek matchup. The Bulldogs scored in double digits for the third time in four games.
“We’ve been so close to that all year,” Stinnett said. “We’ve just been missing some timely hits here and there. We can score 10 runs a game, but we’ve been scoring two, three, four, five.”
Not so Tuesday as the Bulldogs’ high-powered offense showed what it could do.
Freshman Hunter Hines, now a mainstay in the No. 3 spot in the order, led the charge by going 3 for 4 with four RBIs. Two days after reaching the parking lot with a solo shot at Tulane, Hines crushed a laser of a home run over the center field wall in the fourth, bringing home three runs.
Hines also smoked a single into right field for a sixth-inning RBI hit.
“He’s very confident, and he’s really good,” Lemonis said of the Madison Central product. “He’s a really good player. It’s a line drive to center. He can hit it on that parking deck, but when he just tries to stay through the middle of the field, he is special.”
Hines’ homer capped the scoring in the fourth as Mississippi State sent 12 men to the plate in a half-inning that began with the Bulldogs trailing 1-0.
But Von Seibert walked with the bases loaded, and right fielder Kellum Clark smacked a two-run single to right to put MSU on top for good.
Clark was 0 for 16 heading into the Tulane series but has 5 hits in his past 15 at-bats, including one in every game since Friday.
“He started out slow, too, but he’s really talented — we saw it last year,” Lemonis said. “He’s kind of clicking right now, which is nice to see.”
So is Stinnett after four up-and-down relief appearances to start the season. The former Northwest Mississippi Community College pitcher allowed four runs in 2 1/3 innings in his first two outings, was sharp in four scoreless frames against Grambling and gave up two runs in an ugly ninth inning Saturday against Tulane.
But Stinnett was sharp with his slider and his fastball from the start Tuesday. He struck out the side in order in the first and fourth innings, and the lone run he allowed came after an error on Kamren James at third base.
“Parker, facing the adversity he’s had over the first couple weeks, I thought it was a gutty performance,” Lemonis said. “He threw that breaking ball for a strike all night long and kept them off balance.”
It was an outing the Bulldogs — for now minus their best pitcher — sorely needed. Lemonis had no update on ace right-hander Landon Sims, who exited Friday’s game at Tulane with an arm injury. The MSU coach said pitchers KC Hunt and Stone Simmons are also being evaluated medically but did not elaborate.
If repeated, though, Stinnett’s performance Tuesday could help make up for a lot.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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