BILOXI — Perched atop second base, Mississippi State first baseman Josh Hatcher viciously strummed his air guitar.

With the massive neon lights of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino’s luminescent guitar sign emanating from just beyond the outfield wall at MGM Park on Wednesday, Hatcher celebrated with a motion Jimi Hendrix would envy as his roped, two-out double off the Yuengling Lager advertisement in right center field gave MSU (12-4) a lead it wouldn’t relent in a 3-2 win over No. 4 Texas Tech (16-3).

“I’m not really sure,” Hatcher quipped of his McCartney-esque motion. “I was just thinking about it before the season and I came up with it while I was sitting on the couch.”

Origins aside, MSU’s two-game sweep over Texas Tech moved the Bulldogs up 91 spots from 140 to 49 in the RPI per warrennolan.com — a number that had spiraled due to a Feb. 24 loss to Texas Southern, the No. 150-ranked team in the country.

“I just think we played two really clean games in an unbelievable environment,” MSU coach Chris Lemonis said in a nod to the nearly 12,000 fans in attendance the past two days.

“Man, for some people this is the only Mississippi State game they see because they live down here on the coast,” he continued. “And for us to come out here and play well in an unbelievable environment was a lot of fun.”

While the Bulldogs notched seven hits off Red Raiders starter Hunter Dobbins in six innings of work, it wasn’t until Texas Tech coach Tim Tadlock turned to reliever Jakob Brustoski that MSU found its breakthrough.

After a single and stolen base by junior center fielder Rowdey Jordan, Hatcher entered the box with two outs in the seventh inning. Stepping into a 1-1 offering from Brustoski, the Albany, Georgia, native smoked his third pitch of the at-bat to score Jordan from second base.

Two batters later, sophomore catcher Luke Hancock — who handled the designated hitter role Wednesday — lined the second pitch he saw just inside the third base line for an RBI double to push the MSU lead to two.

“We’ve always been a little bit of a momentum offense,” MSU coach Chris Lemonis said. “So I think as we get going and getting some of those hits — some of those two out hits are huge.”

On the mound, Southeastern Louisiana graduate transfer Carlisle Koestler backed up Houston Harding’s stellar start Tuesday night tossing five innings, while allowing just four hits, one earned run and striking out three.

After struggling to 45 pitches in the two frames, Koestler threw a combined 24 pitches in his final three innings of work as he effectively pitched to contact — forcing five groundouts and six flyouts on the night.

“I think it was a little bit of nerves,” he conceded postgame. “I just tried to settle down, that’s about it. They were doing a good job of battling me. I was kind of falling behind in the first inning, but I started to get ahead after the second inning so that kept my pitch count down.”

Behind Koestler, senior Riley Self was the first arm out of the bullpen. Rebounding from a middling 2019 season, Self continued his hot start to the year with his fourth no-hit appearance of the spring. Tossing two innings of relief, Self struck out two of the six batters he faced — moving his strikeout-to-walk ratio to 7 to 1.

Former East Mississippi Community College product Jaxen Forrester joined the action in the eighth inning, allowing one run and one hit, while striking out two in one inning pitched.

Leading by one run heading into the final frame, senior Spencer Price earned his second save in as many days with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.

“We’ve got a couple guys that we use there at the end,” Lemonis said Tuesday. “So we’ve been able to piece it together a couple different ways but Spencer is definitely one — especially being a veteran, a fifth-year guy and he’s been out there before. We’re excited about his development right now because he’s pitching like the Spencer of old.”

Now returning to Starkville for a three-game set against No. 14 Arkansas, the Bulldogs will play in an empty Dudy Noble Field after the university announced Wednesday night it will bar fans from MSU athletic events between March 12 and March 30 in an attempt to battle the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19.

Game one of the series is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday.

Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.