Bulldogs open CWS against Madden, the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Jun. 19—When Mississippi State takes the field tonight in Omaha, the Bulldogs will be facing one of the best pitchers in college baseball.
No. 7 national seed Mississippi State plays No. 2 seed Texas, the highest seed left in the College World Series, at 6 p.m. in the day's second game at TD Ameritrade Park. It will be on ESPN2.
It will be a rematch of the opening game of the 2021 baseball season, and like it did in that opener, Texas (47-15) will start All-American sophomore Ty Madden on the mound.
Mississippi State, however, went a different route than in the opener and will start Will Bednar on the hump. Bednar, a right-hander, is 7-1 with a 3.53 ERA this year. He has not been dealt a loss since April 17 against Ole Miss. He has allowed six earned runs in 10 innings this postseason.
Madden, who went 7-4 this season with a 2.41 ERA and 119 strikeouts in 100 2/3 innings, was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Year and is one of 25 semifinalists for the Golden Spikes Award.
"Madden's a great arm, if not the best arm," MSU outfielder Tanner Allen said. "We're not going to be overlooking him. He's one of the best arms in the country. We have to prepare and bring it Sunday night."
Mississippi State (45-16) got the best of Madden in their season- opening match.
At the State Farm College Baseball Showdown at Globe Life Field, MSU beat Madden and Texas, 8-3. He pitched four innings and allowed four runs, three of them earned, and was pulled after throwing 79 pitches.
He allowed only four hits but walked three batters. Two of the hits he gave up were RBI singles, then allowed a solo home run to MSU cleanup hitter Luke Hancock.
Madden also struck out five MSU batters, including SEC Player of the Year Tanner Allen twice.
"He's got a really good fastball," Allen said. "It's going to be in the mid-90s with a really good slider. He got me two times early in the year. But I feel like I'm a completely different hitter than I was then, just like he's a completely different pitcher, if not probably better."
Madden has come a long way since that opening game.
Since the opener, Madden has only pitched three games where he allowed three earned runs or more and has pitched fewer than six innings only two times.
Madden's fastball garners attention in the mid-to-upper 90s, but his breaking ball can be his make-or-break pitch. When it's at its best, Madden has struck out upwards of 14 batters in a game.
But he's also been prone to walks when it isn't at its best. He walked three MSU batters in the opener, who all came around to score.
And in each of his last two games, against Arizona State in the regionals and South Florida in the super regionals, he issued four walks. The improvement, however, is that he didn't allow those baserunners to come around and score like he did in the opener.
"Power, that's what I remember," MSU head coach Chris Lemonis said of Madden. "He blew balls by us. Then watching him as the years went on, the breaking ball is lights out. If he gets on that roll, he goes to it a lot and can get you to swing and miss a good bit."
