Mississippi State could not overcome a nightmare weekend from its bullpen and dropped its third straight conference series to Auburn, falling to 16-15 overall and 4-8 in the SEC.
The Bulldog bullpen combined to allow 13 runs in less than six innings in State’s losses on Friday and Sunday.
MSU skipper John Cohen did not mince words while expressing his displeasure with his relief staff.
“We are trying to dodge our bullpen. The bullpen has so many walks in it and it had walks in it last year,” Cohen said. “It is personnel that just walks people and there is just not much we can do about that.”
Cohen said the problem with the staff is one of personnel.
“In the future, we will have pitchers who have a background of throwing strikes. These guys do not and it is just that simple,” he said. “There is no other way to say it than we are just not good in that area and we are going to have to find personnel that is good at it.”
Friday, the Tigers jumped on starter junior Tyler Whitney early. In the first inning, four straight batters singled, plating a run before Whitney earned a pair of strikeouts to leave the bases loaded.
The Tigers would earn another in the second on back-to-back hits by Trent Mummey and Joseph Sanders.
From that point, Whitney found his groove, retiring the Tigers scoreless in each of the next four innings.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs took the lead by plating single runs in the second, fourth and fifth innings. Junior Luke Adkins led the way with an RBI sacrifice fly and a home run, while junior Connor Powers provided the RBI single in the fifth.
Auburn broke through once more in the seventh, tying the game at three runs each and chasing Whitney, who finished with a career-best 9 strikeouts.
Whitney gave way to senior Jared Wesson, who closed out the frame.
State would answer in the bottom half of the inning on a two-run shot by Connor Powers.
Senior Chad Crosswhite took the hill in the eighth, pitching around trouble to escape without giving up a run. In the bottom half, Adkins doubled, scoring senior Scott DeLoach and earning Adkins’s third RBI of the game and giving State a three-run lead heading into the ninth inning.
Then things turned ugly for the Bulldogs, when Auburn scored six runs, five of them with two outs, on four hits and an error. The final blow came on a three-run dinger by Sanders before Crosswhite earned a strikeout to end the inning.
The Bulldogs did not give in, plating a pair in their final at-bat but ultimately falling by a score of 9-8.
Senior outfielder Grant Hogue said Cohen praised his team’s effort despite the loss.
“He got us in there and said he was proud of us for competing,” Hogue said. “You know, we were a play away, a call away.”
Saturday, State picked up its lone win of the weekend on a strong performance by freshman Nick Routt. Routt took the bullpen out of the equation by going the distance, surrendering three runs in his first ever nine-inning complete game.
He totaled 12 strikeouts, thanks in part to Auburn’s tendency to be less aggressive than most.
“They take a lot of pitches early in the count,” Routt said. “They look at a lot of pitches and then you can pick the corners and strike them out.”
Cohen said Routt’s ability to put balls in play is even more impressive than his strikeout total.
“Guys play better defense behind [Routt] than anybody on our staff because they know they’re going to get balls in play pretty quickly,” he said.
Sunday’s 12-10 loss was painfully similar to Friday’s late-inning meltdown. The Bulldogs took an 8-2 lead into the fifth inning before Auburn exploded with four home runs in a five-run inning.
State plated single runs in the sixth and ninth innings, but another two-run shot in the seventh and three walked-in runs in the eighth proved to be too much for the Bulldogs.
This week, the Bulldogs play a pair of games against C-USA opponents. They travel east today for a 6:30 p.m. contest with UAB at Regions Park in Hoover before hosting USM Wednesday.