STARKVILLE — The 8-0 record and second series sweep may indicate that the Diamond Dawgs are back in the swing of things, but Game 3 against Delaware on Sunday was far from routine.
Mississippi State baseball won 7-3 on a cold and windy day at Dudy Noble Field, working through six different pitchers to take down the Fighting Blue Hens.
Starting pitcher Charlie Foster got into trouble early, but Duke Stone came out of the bullpen to steady the ship and strand three runners in the second inning. He would be credited with the win after the Bulldogs pulled ahead during his four innings of work, and Tyler Pitzer would pick up his first save of the season by striking out the tying run with loaded bases in the ninth inning.
With some early mixed results for Foster, MSU head coach Brian O’Connor faced a question about revisiting the weekend rotation, but he backed up his young pitcher.
“We certainly have a lot of confidence in Charlie Foster, he earned the opportunities he’s had for what he did in the fall,” he said. “A lot of guys, and I feel the same way, he was one of the MVPs in the fall for us (based) on how great he pitched, and looked really solid in the preseason. He was a little bit slowed behind some of the other guys, caught up quick and felt like he was ready to go.
“He had a great first inning, and then his command kind of left him a bit. He’s better than that, he would tell you that. Proud of Duke Stone, came in and did the job for his team, settled the game down a bit, allowed us to take a lead.”
Windy road to victory
Gusts up to 30 miles per hour made the basics a bit more complicated across the board, and it wound up making a difference in the ballgame. A couple of outfield errors and four total mistakes by Delaware helped MSU build a lead after trailing 2-0 early on.
“The wind impacts a college baseball game more than anything. More than the cold,” O’Connor said after the game. “You could see how tough it was for our guys to catch the ball in the air, and them. A lot of times my experience has been when it’s a windy day, it’s typically a funky ball game. We pitched Duke longer than we probably would have wanted to, but when we got ahead there, I wanted to make sure we got to look at the young freshman, Parker Rhodes, and see how he would handle it for the second time out there. Looked shaky and there was a need to go to Pitzer.”
The Bulldogs had to take the conditions into account for both sides of the lines, and while the hitting suffered some, the extra work before the game helped them account for the difficulties in navigating the outfield.
“Any right-handed hitter that pulls the bull, if it’s in the air at all, it’s gonna be an out with the wind like that,” O’Connor said. “What we do is during infield/outfield, Coach Kirby hit about 10 extra pop-ups. We didn’t catch about half of them, but they’ve got to get the work in on it. Fortunately, we caught them all in the game, and maybe it’s because you put that extra time in it and the guys understand how to manage that wind and catch the ball. We certainly did a better job than Delaware did, and that was part of the ballgame.”
Settling in
While there have been some exceptions, O’Connor has been able to rely on his young bullpen. There has been a focus on balance as starters get up to speed on the season and the rest of the staff get limited but important opportunities for relief work.
“I really like our pitching staff. We need to add more depth. We need to get some more of these guys out there who don’t have much experience,” O’Connor said. “Jack Bauer needs to get back out there, but the situations have to dictate, have to be right for us to put guys into the ball game.”
O’Connor said that the inexperienced staff – particularly the starters – means trying to find opportunities for guys just to get up to game speed at this level for the first time.
“We’re trying to log opportunities for those guys so as we go forward, we know who we can count on,” he said. “I thought Maddox Webb did a really great job again today, that’s three times out there that he’s pitched pretty darn well. There’s plenty of them that we have confidence in, we just need to get a couple more guys some opportunities to really understand what we have.”
MSU plays against Austin Peay today at Dudy Noble Field at 4 p.m. and then will travel to Arlington, Texas, for the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series this weekend.
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