STARKVILLE — Chris Lemonis thought he could see what was coming.
No. 4 Mississippi State and No. 24 Long Beach State were locked in a scoreless tie in Friday’s season opener at Dudy Noble Field, and Lemonis thought the critical hit that would open up the game wasn’t far away.
With the wind blowing in from left field, he even believed he knew where the baseball would end up.
“I kept thinking we were going to get that hit: one of our guys was going to jump a ball and put it into right,” Lemonis said.
Lemonis wasn’t far off. He just had the wrong team.
Long Beach State’s Kaden Moeller jumped on a first-pitch fastball with two out in the seventh inning, parking it in the first row in right center field. It was the only blemish against Mississippi State pitcher Landon Sims in a terrific outing, but it was enough to help the Dirtbags (1-0) to a 3-0 win over the Bulldogs (0-1) on Friday in Starkville.
“They played better than us today,” Sims said. “They did pretty much everything better than us today, and that’s what it boils down to.”
Mississippi State managed just one hit, and freshman Hunter Hines was immediately thrown out trying to stretch his seventh-inning single into a double.
The Bulldogs had just three baserunners in total as Long Beach State’s Luis Ramírez and two relievers combined to open the 2022 season with a shutout performance.
“We’ve got to do better than we did today to win the game,” catcher Logan Tanner said. “You can’t win a game hitting one base hit.”
Mississippi State showed that Friday, matching Long Beach State zero for zero until Sims faltered for the first and only time. Making his first and only start, the right-hander struck out 13 hitters in seven full innings, allowing just five hits and not walking a batter.
But Sims can’t take back his first pitch to Moeller in that decisive at-bat. Really, he doesn’t want to.
“I think he just ambushed a fastball,” Sims said. “He put a good swing on it. If I could do it again, I’d probably throw the exact same pitch.”
For the former relief ace, who struck out 100 batters in 56.1 innings last year, transitioning from a closer to a starter was different. But it was nothing Sims couldn’t handle.
Tanner said Sims “had everything working,” notably the electric fastball and wipeout slider that earned him a career-high 13 punchouts on just 81 pitches. Sims had never pitched more than four innings in a college game before, though he threw 76 pitches against Tulane in 2021.
“You can’t ask for much more,” Tanner said. “Your starter gives you (13) in seven and gives up one run, you should win that game.”
Long Beach State added a pair of runs in the eighth inning against reliever Parker Stinnett. The Dirtbags’ bullpen, meanwhile, found more success as Matt Fields and Devereaux Harrison shut down the Bulldogs’ offense for the final three innings. The duo backed Ramírez, who didn’t allow a baserunner until Kellum Clark walked with two away in the fifth.
Tanner said the right-hander, who beat Mississippi State back in 2020 in Long Beach, was effective at locating his two-seam sinker and mixing pitches: change-ups to left-handers and sliders to righties. Instead of hitting the ball squarely or even in the air, the Bulldogs pounded it into the ground again and again.
“We couldn’t seem to get a barrel on him, and I think we probably hit 15 ground balls to shortstop, it felt like,” Tanner said.
The only offensive success for Mississippi State came when Hines laced a ball into left field with two out in the bottom of the seventh. But the freshman from Madison Central thought the ball had skidded into the corner and turned toward second, where he was tagged out by a mile.
Lemonis professed faith in Hines, who earned the opening day start at designated hitter for his prowess with the bat. Tanner, too, backed up the freshman’s mistake.
“It’s the first day of his career,” the MSU catcher said. “I think the first day of my career, I missed first base on a homer. It happens. It’s one of those things where you just learn from it and try to get better.”
The same applies to Mississippi State as a whole after Friday’s loss. The Bulldogs will play the Dirtbags again at 2 p.m. Saturday, sending KC Hunt to the mound against hard-throwing right-hander Marques Johnson.
“It’s going to be another game like this,” Lemonis said. “I think you’ll see a dogfight.”
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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