Something Special Brewing at Dudy Noble

The Bulldogs finished off their third straight perfect weekend on the young season in baseball. The Mississippi State Bulldogs are now 13-0. They are one of only a handful of teams to not lose a game. The early part of the season is starting to resemble the same team that last went 13-0 for Mississippi State. That would be the Bulldog team from 2013, and we all know how that ended.

Now then, before we jump too far ahead of ourselves, it is still early. The Bulldogs have played marvelous baseball, but we still have about 75% of the regular season left. Having said all that, the coaches, players, and fans all feel a lot better about the prospects of the season at this point than we did last year. The Bulldogs should be close to, if not in, the top 10 of most of the rankings this week when they release later in the day.

Beating the Arizona Wildcats twice this weekend provided a much needed legitimacy boost to the team’s resume. While the Bulldogs have taken care of business entering the four game weekend series against Arizona and Samford, the teams Mississippi State had played prior to this weekend won’t be in the NCAA Tournament and won’t be heard of on a national level all year. Alabama A&M might surprise some people and get an automatic invite, but that will be about it. Arizona will be a factor in the always difficult PAC-12. To manhandle the Wildcats the way the Bulldogs did was beyond impressive, and they went out and shut down a potent Samford lineup with relative ease.

The pitching has lived up to the hype. The real key to the season has been the offense. The Bulldogs have been hammering opposing pitchers all season long. The Bulldogs are always one of the best pitching and fielding teams in the country year in and year out. The question is always how much offense will the team get. Through the first 13 games, the Bulldogs are averaging almost 9 runs a game.

The reason for the offensive outburst starts with Seth Heck, Ryan Gridley, and Jacob Robson. Those three have consistently been on base every game. They have also driven in a bunch of runs in the process. Josh Loevelady has also stepped up and been a force throwing out would be base stealers and hitting over .300 for the season. And oh yeah, the only Preseason All SEC player for the Bulldogs in Catcher Gavin Collins, he hasn’t even gotten in a game yet because he is recovering from injury still.

While it is still too early to start talking about Omaha or bust, the season is off to a great start. It’s been such a great start, the Bulldogs are starting give their fans some thing they hadn’t had since the early part of this century: swagger. I can’t wait to see where this team finishes.