MSU Baseball Anything But Lucky on St. Patrick's Week

Mississippi State is coming off of a five game stretch where they won one game out of five- including three one run losses, a loss where Chris Stratton struck out 17 and took the lead in the tenth inning on a home run, and a loss with the bases loaded in the ninth, not to mention getting swept by lowly Southeastern Louisiana on the road.  Injuries have mounted to the point where John Cohen has had to call redshirt freshman off the beach from spring break so that MSU can have a functioning outfield.

As far as luck in baseball, I remember something Uncle Mark taught me- you make your own luck.  I believe that is very true when it comes to baseball.  MSU could very easily say- “hey, we have a lot of injuries and now we’re having to start freshmen because of that- what do you expect?”  Despite that fact, this team has decided to play hard and they put themselves in position to win a series against LSU on the road- in fact, I would say that MSU should have won the series despite their situation.  But the fact remains that they did not win- and I think that any time a baseball team does not win, you have to take cold hard look at your team and try to figure out why you did not win and what needs to be done better.  And usually, when your team is falling just a little bit short, it’s normally one or two little things- so at least a total overhaul isn’t needed.

So, looking at this team and the losses that they have had it’s very apparent that they miss CT Bradford and Daryl Norris.  The pitching has been pretty good and the defense has been pretty good.  As mentioned before we had a 17 strikeout performance, and Kendall Graveman had an outstanding complete game performance in game three.  MSU did not make an error on the weekend on defense- and that’s a big reason why MSU has been in almost every game this year- we pitch and play defense well in general.  So, the onus goes on the offense- which actually outscored LSU this weekend.  If you look at the stats, you will see that we are hitting .291 on the season, and this weekend MSU hit .242.  That’s respectable for a young team.  And with two of the main cogs in the offense out, we have seen some players step up- such as Demarcus Henderson (.347), Wes Rea (.309, 2 home runs), and the guy that was on spring break- Tyler Fullerton is hitting .412.  Adam Frazier and Trey Porter continue to be solid as well.

By the end of the season, I think MSU may look back on this stretch and actually feel lucky on a couple of fronts.  Because of the injuries, players like Tyler Fullerton are now getting quality at bats and playing time that they would not have gotten otherwise.  The other thing that is good is much like the trading deadline in MLB, a team can improve vastly by adding one hitter.  Obviously, MSU can’t trade for anyone, but there is no doubt that adding CT Bradford and Daryl Norris will improve the offense and the team later in the SEC season.  CT should be back first- likely in a week or two and then Norris should be back sometime around the middle of the SEC season.  That’s not to mention Taylor Stark, Ben Bracewell, and Brent Brownlee- those players coming back along with the now experienced younger players could set MSU up to make a late run in the SEC season.

I just hope that MSU heeds Uncle Mark’s advice and makes their own luck good luck.