STARKVILLE — February is made for answering some of the pressing questions that plague college baseball coaches around the country.
“Who do you trust coming out of the ’pen?” is one, Mississippi State coach Chris Lemonis acknowledged Wednesday. “Who’s going to make pitches?” is another.
It’s only been five games, but the Bulldogs (3-2) aren’t sure yet.
“We’re trying to figure ourselves out,” Lemonis said.
With Arizona State coming into town this weekend, the Bulldogs had better do that soon.
The Sun Devils (4-0) are Mississippi State’s first Power Five opponent of the season, and they visit Dudy Noble Field this weekend.
MSU isn’t exactly off to a scorching start, but Lemonis predicted an exciting series nonetheless.
“It’ll be a premier matchup this weekend,” he said. “I think it’ll be one of the better weekend matchups in college baseball.”
The series opens at 4 p.m. Friday. First pitch Saturday is 5 p.m., and a 1 p.m. start Sunday wraps up the three-game set.
The Sun Devils come to Starkville without a loss, having swept San Diego State in their opening series in Phoenix. Arizona State picked up a 6-3 win over UNLV in midweek action Tuesday.
Opening-day starter Owen Stevenson allowed two runs over four innings against SDSU, and it was ASU’s worst start so far — which says something about the Sun Devils’ pitching staff.
Khristian Curtis held the Aztecs scoreless for five innings Saturday, and Timmy Manning pitched 5 2/3 shutout frames in the Sunday game.
“They’ve got three front-line starters with power stuff,” Lemonis said.
Despite that, Arizona State went just 26-32 last season and was left out of D1Baseball’s preseason projected NCAA tournament field. (MSU was slotted in as a No. 2 seed in the Winston-Salem Regional, hosted by Wake Forest.)
The Sun Devils are coached by longtime Major League infielder Willie Bloomquist, who had a 14-year MLB career with the Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals, Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks.
Bloomquist played for legendary Mississippi State coach Ron Polk on the 1999 USA Baseball team, competing in that summer’s World Championship in Italy.
After Bloomquist got the job at ASU in June 2021, Polk put Lemonis in touch with the new Sun Devils coach. They set up a meeting in Starkville — Bloomquist’s first trip to Dudy Noble.
“That’s why they’re kind of coming,” Lemonis said. “He’d always wanted to play here.”
To handle its business against Arizona State, Mississippi State must carry over its play from Wednesday’s 14-3 rout of ULM.
The Bulldogs bounced back from an ugly 11-5 loss to the Warhawks on Tuesday, and they think they’ve found a formula for success moving forward.
“I would say just play our game and just play as a unit, like we did tonight,” outfielder Colton Ledbetter said. “Filling up the zone like we did today and just do what we do as an offense.”
Mississippi State has alternated wins and losses in each of its first five games.
Should that trend continue, the Bulldogs will lose two out of three this weekend against the Sun Devils.
Lemonis knows that wouldn’t be acceptable as MSU tries to build a tournament résumé, a process that starts when the season does in mid-February.
“They have to learn,” he said. “I spoke to them about being consistent — coming every day and being consistent, playing the game the right way.”
If the Bulldogs can manage that this weekend, they could find success in a major nonconference home series.
And perhaps answer some of those burning questions in the process.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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