On a weekend that the Mississippi State men’s basketball team made history, MSU pitchers spent their time making short history of Tennessee Tech batters. The Bulldog hurlers limited the 0-4 Golden Eagles to combined totals of four hits and one run in a pair of games played Saturday and Sunday. In the process, State improved its record to 7-0.
Game 1
Jamie Gant threw five innings of shutout baseball Saturday before allowing Tech’s lone run in the sixth. Meanwhile, the MSU offense produced three big innings, and the Bulldogs trampled the Golden Eagles 12-1. When the book was closed on Gant, he had recorded seven strikeouts and had given up just two hits and one walk.
“I just wanted to build on my last outing,” Gant said.
He was talking about the season opener. In that game Gant held Western Kentucky scoreless during his five innings. He did give up five hits, though, and that was too much for his liking.
“It was a nerve-racking first game, but I’m starting to cool off a little bit,” he said. “Coach Rock (pitching coach Daron Schoenrock) and I were talking how we need to try to throw less pitches and make them put it in play and let the defense work.”
The fielders did just that, committing only one error.
At the plate, the team found the fifth inning to be their best. Freshman second baseman Jeffrey Rea picked up his third single of the game-this time for an RBI. The next batter, shortstop Steve Gendron, doubled down the right field line to bring home MSU’s fourth and fifth runs of the inning.
“Every time (Rea) gets a hit, I’m telling myself, ‘Well, I got to get a hit,’ because he’s three years younger than me,” Gendron said. “Hitting is always contagious, and Coach (Ron) Polk preaches that all the time.”
Left fielder Jon Mungle had to leave the game in the first inning after sustaining an injury while running the bases. The injury kept him out of Sunday’s game, and Polk said there might be a torn muscle.
Game 2
The Bulldogs caught the hitting bug in the fourth inning on Sunday, but starting pitcher Jeff Lacher didn’t really need much help from the offense.
While Lacher failed to achieve “perfection” in a baseball sense, his efficiency left nothing to be desired. The right-hander faced the minimum number of batters, 18, during his six innings on the mound.
“I felt good from the very beginning,” Lacher said. “Warming up in the bullpen, I could tell I was going to have a good day.”
Lacher gave up a single to Chris Gant, the second batter he faced. But Brandon Selvog then floated a soft line drive to first baseman Brad Jones, who caught the ball and stepped on the bag for one of three Bulldog double plays on the afternoon.
Lacher retired his next nine opponents in order before allowing a single to start the fifth. It was then that he began to notice just how successful he had been.
“I hadn’t been in the stretch for a while,” he said. “And I realized it. I had tried not to think about it, but I could tell I was having quick innings.”
Lacher didn’t have to throw from the stretch for long. He forced a fly-out, and Gendron, Rea and Jones turned a 6-4-3 double play to finish the inning. After three quick outs in the sixth, Polk decided that Lacher’s services were no longer needed.
Rea added two RBI’s during a fourth-inning scoring frenzy in which MSU sent 11 men to the plate and brought six of them home to score. Facing the second of three Tech pitchers for the inning, Rea swatted a double to the left-center gap, scoring Jones and Jeff Butts.
Offense was nonexistent in the second half of the ballgame as the Bulldogs held on for the shutout victory.
Six MSU relief pitchers got an inning apiece during the weekend-three relievers per day. Of Brett Cleveland, Jon Crosby, Saunders Ramsey, Brad Corley, Mike Valentine and Todd Doolittle, no one permitted even a hit.
“The good thing is we got 12 pitchers, and all 12 of them have gotten some innings in.” Polk said. “We feel like pitching is going to be somewhat of a strongpoint for us.”
Polk added that the 7-0 record is nice, but the real season is yet to begin.
“The ‘exhibition season’ has now come to an end,” he said. “The competition is going to pick up dramatically in a short period of time.
“I’d have to give us an ‘A’ right now, but the teacher that gave us that ‘A’ may not be as tough as the next teacher,” Polk said.
The next teacher-or maybe the next test-is South Alabama on Tuesday at 4 p.m.