With five opening day starters out with injuries, the Mississippi State baseball team is craving experienced players but has been forced to gain experience for the younger guys. Unfortunately, it just so happens that experience is coming against the top teams in the country. After taking one of three games at No. 13 LSU last weekend, the Bulldogs fell just short of taking a weekend series against No. 3 Arkansas, falling 8-5 in an extra innings contest Sunday in the series finale.
SEC West foe Auburn, who just won two games against LSU, is awaiting the arrival of the Bulldogs, but the MSU baseball team had an upset of its own to take care of first. The Arkansas Razorbacks, who finished first in the West last year topping MSU by one game, came into Starkville atop the West with a 21-2 overall record and 4-0 in the SEC.
But Friday night was all Bulldogs as they jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and defeated the Razorbacks 11-2. Sophomore Hunter Renfroe got it started in the first with an inside-the-park home run and made things easier on himself in the second inning by hitting one out of the park.
Renfroe said he thought his third base coach was crazy when he was pointing for him to run home on his first hit, but he knew his second one was gone right when he hit it.
“I think I felt better today than I have in a really long time about swinging the bat. I’ve hit enough home runs in my life that I knew that one was gone,” Renfroe said. “We had a lot of good video on (Arkansas pitcher D.J. Baxendale), and we were focusing on his arm slot because that’s where it was going to be.”
The Dogs continued to pile on the runs, adding two more in both the third and fourth innings and capping it off with three in the seventh. Renfroe led all players with four RBIs, while juniors Sam Frost and Trey Porter each added two.
The pitching duel was won by MSU junior Chris Stratton, who kept his stainless record moving to 5-0, while Arkansas ace Baxendale suffered his first loss of the year and moved to 5-1.
The No. 3 Razorbacks bounced back quickly for Saturday’s game and overtook the Dogs 8-0. MSU only had three hits on the day compared to Arkansas’s 14. On the mound none of the four MSU pitchers could ever take control of the game.
Sunday’s rubber match needed extra innings to decide a game in which MSU started five freshmen. After jumping out to an early two run lead, State did not score again until the ninth inning, tying the game at three. Junior Kendall Graveman pitched 5.1 solid innings and allowed only two runs.
At the plate the Dogs failed to find the holes. They hit numerous line drives off a sinker-ball pitcher, one which ended in a triple play. The team went 0-3 with the bases loaded and left 14 runners on base.
The Razorbacks opened up the game in the 11th inning, plating five runners and running senior Caleb Reed out of the game after 4.2 innings of relief work before Tanner Gaines recorded the final two outs.
The MSU pitching staff gave up the most hits so far this season with 15, but the Dogs still had a chance in the bottom of the 11th. However, they only managed to score two runs, leaving the bases loaded once again to fall 8-5.
Head coach John Cohen said he feels like in the long run the experience gained by the younger guys will help, but for the short term it is frustrating and disappointing.
“I thought our kids competed their hearts out; they never give up,” Cohen said. “This is a really good baseball team, and this is a team that could win a National Championship. They’re right there, and we’re so stinking close to being at that level even with virtually no experience on the field.”
The experience will only continue to grow for the Bulldog freshmen as they host Alcorn State tonight at 6:30 and then travel to Auburn for the weekend. Frost, who went 3-3 on Sunday, said the team can find a way to win against tougher competition in the SEC.
“We’ve played two of the best teams in the SEC the last two weeks, and we’ve played some of the best baseball we’ve played all season,” Frost said. “It gives us a lot of confidence knowing we can compete with the top teams and lets us know we are one of the best teams in the conference.”