Mississippi State looks to grind down Rebels' starting pitching
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Apr. 16—STARKVILLE — Mississippi State's offensive production has greatly increased over the last five games, and coach Chris Lemonis really needs his baseball squad to keep improving this weekend.
Five games ago, Mississippi State was batting only .267 as a team, 11th best in the Southeastern Conference. But the Bulldogs (25-7, 8-4 SEC) have scored 65 runs and scattered around 67 hits in the last 10 days.
Now Mississippi State is hitting .281 as a team, 5th best in the SEC. Against conference opponents only, MSU saw its batting average rise from .234 to .259 following its weekend sweep of Auburn. MSU scored 32 runs in the series.
No. 4 Mississippi State will need its offense to continue its recent surge as No. 6 Ole Miss visits Dudy Noble Field for a weekend series beginning at 6 p.m. tonight. The series continues at 2 p.m. on Saturday and concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m.
"We're excited about how our offense has been going the last couple of weeks," Lemonis said. "We feel like we are getting healthy there and they're going to have to control us too. They've got two of the better starters in the country and some other really good arms."
The first test for Mississippi State will be Ole Miss ace Gunnar Hoglund.
Hoglund enters the weekend with a 3-1 record and 2.57 ERA. He has not pitched less than 5.1 innings in a game this year, and he has allowed only six earned runs in 25.1 SEC innings.
Doug Nikhazy has been just as dominant on Saturdays. The lefty is 3-1 with a 2.43 ERA and allowed only two earned runs in three SEC games this year. He's pitched at least five innings in all three conference games and has eclipsed 100 pitches in two of them.
Both of the Ole Miss hurlers' pitch counts will be critical to the weekend series as Mississippi State will try to get to the Rebels' injured and sometimes shaky bullpen as quickly as possible.
"To get through their two starters, we really have to grind them out," Lemonis said. "It takes the whole lineup to to do that. You can't grind them out with your first five or six guys then they run right through the back side of your lineup. For us, our guys at the end have been really good."
The bottom of Mississippi State's lineup has primarily been a combination of Josh Hatcher, Lane Forsythe and whoever starts in left field and second base.
Forsythe, in the nine hole, has started 22 games and is tied for the team lead with a .333 batting average.
He has a .430 on base percentage, and has really given Rowdey Jordan and Tanner Allen chances for RBIs as the top of the batting order comes back around.
