Mississippi State drops season-opener, loses 3-0 to Long Beach State
Feb. 18—STARKVILLE — Mississippi State's Landon Sims was dominant until he made one mistake.
Long Beach State's Kaden Moeller, a freshman designated hitter, homered off last year's star closer with two outs in the seventh.
The No. 24-ranked Dirtbags would go on to add two more runs off MSU reliever Parker Stinnett in a 3-0 win over No. 4 MSU as the Bulldogs played for the first time since defeating Vanderbilt 9-0 to clinch the College World Series late last June.
Making the transition to Game 1 starter Sims, who had a 1.44 earned run average and 13 saves in 56 1/3 innings as a freshman last year, went seven innings with 81 pitches.
He mostly avoided hard contact before Moeller's home run, which came after back-to-back swinging strikeouts, Nos. 12 and 13 on the day.
The Bulldogs were no-hit by Long Beach right-hander Luis Ramirez for six innings.
They got their only hit with two outs in the seventh off reliever Matt Fields. That's when freshman Hunter Hines got one to drop in deep left, but Hines was out by a country mile when he attempted to stretch his single into a double. Inning over.
Down 3-0, the Bulldogs sent Von Seibert, RJ Year and Kamren James to the plate against Golden Spikes nominee Devereaux Harrison.
The sophomore right-hander set them down in order to close things out.
C Logan Tanner
DH Hunter Hines
RF Kellum Clark
LF Brad Cumbest
CF Brayland Skinner
SS Lane Forsythe
Championship logo unveiled:
First inning:
Sims looks just fine as a starter in his first inning. Strikes out the side while allowing an infield single.
MSU goes down in order to keep it scoreless.
Second inning:
Long Beach State shortstop Sebastian Murrilo just rammed into Luke Hancock while running to first on a foul pop-up to first. Landon Sims comes over to let Murrilo hear it. Chris Lemonis comes out, clearly upset it was only ruled an out and nothing more. Hancock appears fine, but he's not happy either.
Everything settled, and Murrilo made a nice play in the hole in the bottom half of the inning to retire Logan Tanner.
Third inning:
Sims has faced 10 batters, thrown 33 pitches and struck out seven.
Mississippi State has no hits first time through the order.
Fourth inning:
Murrilo's next time up, he goes down in three pitches, capped off by a 96 mile per hour fastball — believe that's his fastest pitch of the afternoon. Sims let him hear it, too.
MSU still unable to muster any solid contact.
Fifth inning:
Sims has 11 strikeouts after mowing through the order twice.
MSU gets its first baserunner with a nice two-out walk for Kellum Clark, but a Brad Cumbest strikeout ends any chance of a threat. Still not hits for MSU.
Sixth inning
MSU just had the best scoring threat of the afternoon and it came off a walk, fielder's choice and a near-infield single. Still no hits for the Bulldogs. Sims back out for the sixth.
Seventh inning
MSU going into the stretch on a sour note. Kaden Moeller just unleashed on a Sims pitch to left-center. Long Beach State on the board first.
Matt Fields takes over for Ramirez, who pitched six no-hit innings.
The no-hit bid ends with a two-out single to right field by Hines, but he is thrown out easily trying to extend it into a double.
Eighth inning
Leadoff walk comes around to score two batters later one a double from Long Beach State's Chase Luttrell. Makes it 2-0 LBSU.
A two-out single brings in another run for Long Beach State.
Ninth inning
Long Beach State close Devereaux Harrison is a preseason All-American and showed why. He takes down MSU in order to seal the 3-0 win for Long Beach State.
STEFAN KRAJISNIK is the Mississippi State athletics reporter for the Daily Journal. Contact him at stefan.krajisnik@djournal.com.
