STARKVILLE — Mississippi State relief pitcher Jared Liebelt went to Jackson this weekend full of innocent curiosity: as a junior college transfer in his first true intrasquad scrimmage, he wanted to see how his fastball and slider play against Southeastern Conference hitters in a game-like scenari
He got that answer Friday with two scoreless, walkless innings pitched, allowing one hit and striking out three. MSU coach Andy Cannizaro noticed.
Cannizaro saw that and much more in MSU’s first three-game series of intrasquad scrimmages this fall last weekend at Jackson’s Wills-Smith Field.
“I thought it was vital to get our team out on a real field, a regulation field for three days,” Cannizaro told The Dispatch. “We’ve been able to get so much work done inside, and I’ve been really happy with that part of it, but you’re still lacking the overall consistency of the game in terms of getting the outfield involved, the cuts and relay part of it.
“Going down to Jackson, my main goal was when we got back on the bus and got back here that we were a better team than when we left, and I felt like we accomplished that. The product got better and better as we went from Friday into Saturday and Sunday.”
Liebelt was just one pitcher to stand out over the weekend. Noah Hughes, in his first true game action since Tommy John surgery kept him out of last season, threw three perfect innings Friday with three strikeouts before handing the ball to Liebelt. Cannizaro said it was the best he had seen Hughes pitch since he has been coaching Hughes, and did so through a cold rain Friday night. Cannizaro said Hughes personified a big point of emphasis for MSU this season: throwing more strikes.
“JP France threw the ball really well for us yesterday, he’s brought a really good veteran presence to our pitching staff,” Cannizaro said. “Jared Liebelt did a nice job, threw two really good scoreless innings. We could certainly see him out of the pen in some capacity, pitching some real innings when the game is potentially on the line kind of innings.
“We had a freshman Zane Stephens throw some nice innings that I also think fits somewhere in the pen in year one.”
More important than the pitching performance may have been doing it in the environment MSU created for the weekend.
Cannizaro said MSU treated the weekend as if it were a road SEC series: same Friday night curfew, same Saturday morning breakfast and all. The only different detail was a trip to the Batson Children’s Hospital on Saturday to visit patients.
Cannizaro is convinced the experience in the road routine will help when MSU spends nearly the entire first month of the 2018 season on the road while construction crews continue renovating Dudy Noble Field.
“The first month of the season is going to be extremely difficult with the sheer lack of home games,” Cannizaro said. “If we can get accustomed to what the road is like, then when we go down to Hattiesburg the first weekend of the season, we shouldn’t have so many young guys wide-eyed, a status quo kind of thing.”
At the plate, the usual suspects produced: leadoff center fielder Jake Mangum went 4-7 with three runs scored, an RBI and a double; Elijah MacNamee drive in two runs and scored one more on four hits; Hunter Stovall stole a base and drive in a run on two hits.
Of the new additions, junior college transfer catcher Marshall Gilbert walked four times and drove in a run with a hit in the Saturday game.
“Marshall Gilbert played really well behind the plate and that was exciting to see,” Cannizaro said. “He and Dustin Skelton are battling every day for that starting catcher position and Marshall played well: he swung it well, he caught the ball really well, he threw it well. He did a lot of things that I was really excited to see and really encouraged because he’s a junior college guy and you have no idea what to expect and they have no idea what to expect when they get here.”
Cannizaro said MSU will keep the same rosters for the Maroon & White World Series next weekend, Nov. 17-19. Admission will be free for each scrimmage, but Cannizaro said MSU will also use every bit of allowed practice time and have elements of practice around the scrimmages. Given the limits to indoor work while in Starkville, Cannizaro wants to take advantage of every second possible on an outdoor field.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter, @Brett_Hudson
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