The Mississippi State baseball team swept through the Starkville Regional this weekend mostly due to some outstanding pitching performances.
What if I told you that Mississippi State would lean heavily on their pitching staff to win their regional tournament and Dakota Hudson would provide the worst outing of the weekend? Well that’s exactly what happened in Starkville this past weekend. Friday afternoon’s game was billed as ace vs. ace with Hudson going against SEMO starter Joey Lucchesi, the nation’s strikeout leader. But the game wouldn’t live up to the billing as Hudson gave up four runs in his shortest start of the year, 3.1 innings. Despite the struggles of MSU’s best starter the pitching staff was still instrumental in State winning the regional.
After Hudson was pulled in the fourth Friday, Ryan Rigby came in and allowed one run in 2.1 innings. The pitching story of this game was Daniel Brown. The lefty would enter the game in the sixth inning with the Bulldogs down 5-4 and shut down the Redhawks. In his 3.1 no hit innings, Brown allowed just one walk and struck out 4. Brown seems to be settled in nicely in his long relief role.
Related Story: Mississippi State wins Starkville Regional!
Saturday the Bulldogs handed the ball to starter Austin Sexton against Cal State Fullerton. Sexton was good going 6.1 innings allowing five hits and just one run. The Titans could never string hits together but they did get a runner on base in every inning against Sexton. Yet the Bulldog starter was cool, calm, and collected working out of every situation. Again a member of the bullpen would be lights out. This time it was Blake Smith going 2.2 innings giving up no hits and just two walks for the save.
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Mississippi State found themselves in a tournament clinching game Sunday night. Zac Houston was tapped to start after his performances in the SEC tournament last week. To say Houston delivered might be an understatement. In his six innings of work he allowed just two hits and three walks while racking up ten strikeouts. After loading the bases with nobody out in the seventh, the starter would again give way to the bullpen. This time it was Ryan Rigby who got two strikeouts and a flyout to get out of the jam unscathed on his way to a perfect three inning save.
The Mississippi State bullpen pitched 11.1 innings this weekend allowing three hits and just one run. Most of the questions surrounding this team all year involved Sunday and late inning pitching. Houston, Rigby, Brown, and Smith helped answer those questions this weekend. We still haven’t seen freshman Konnor Pilkington who proved to be a capable starter during SEC play and closer Reid Humphreys left Sundays game after being hit by a pitch. Add in those two and John Cohen has several weapons in his arsenal going forward. These are the type of pitching performances MSU needs to lean on if they want to win their super regional and advance to Omaha.