Mississippi State baseball fans may not know when the cold February temperatures will end, but there is one thing they can count on – head coach John Cohen bringing some heat to Dudy Noble Field this afternoon to open the 2010 season.
MSU will host Rhode Island in a three-game series this weekend, kicking off a 13-game home stretch over the next three weeks.
One area Cohen said the Bulldogs were poised to improve is pitching, after struggles on the mound led to a disappointing 25-29 record in 2009.
The second-year skipper watched his relief staff have trouble holding late-inning leads last year, and said he has options this year specifically for closing out games.
“If we need to get them out with a breaking ball, we have that available,” he said. “From the front end of the game, and the back end of the game. If we need velocity, we have that. If we need movement, we have that.”
Cohen said his staff believes this squad is much better than last season.
“We had a very nice recruiting class ranked eighth-best in the nation by Baseball America,” he said. “It’s a pitching-rich class and that’s one of the things we felt like we had to address immediately.”
The only knock against the new staff is youth, Cohen said. Of the 18 new players Mississippi State added this season, eight are freshmen hurlers.
“We’re going have some guys that take the mound with some great stuff, great velocity and great second pitches,” Cohen said. “They’re going to make some mistakes. We’re going to have to live with those mistakes and get better as the year goes on. I’m very confident we’re going to have six freshman come out to pitch on a regular basis.”
One returning player Cohen expects to lean on is right-hander Devin Jones of Eupora.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen at this point in time a player make the improvements that Devin has made over the last 365 days,” Cohen said.” He has touched 94 or 95 [mph] in each one of his outings this spring so far, and his slider’s been anywhere between 82 and 85 miles an hour. He’s been dominant, and our plan is to put him at the end of the game. We really struggled last year at the end of games to get outs. We’re purposefully putting some of our better guys at the back end to address that.”
Another veteran in Cohen’s sights is sophomore Nick Routt, a southpaw from Silver Spring, Md., who led the team last season with a 4.15 ERA and 5-3 record in 13 starts. As a true freshman last season, Routt also displayed great stamina on the mound, sharing the SEC lead with four complete games. Cohen said some combination of Routt, senior left-hander Tyler Whitney or even true freshman Chris Stratton of Tupelo could take the mound during the weekend series against Rhode Island.
Routt said he was ready to finally get the season started, and had some advice for freshmen hoping to repeat his surprise performance last season.
“I just wanna go out there, have fun, win some games and see what happens,” he said. “My advice to the freshmen is to not get too nervous and just have fun out there. Baseball is supposed to be a fun game. You gotta think and be serious, but you can’t over think and try to force things. You just have to let it happen.”
Senior first baseman Connor Powers, who opted to play his senior year at MSU after being drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer, said he had something to prove this season.
“Last year, to be honest, to me was a disappointment,” he said. “I did hit 19 home runs, but at the same time I thought I could have done a lot better job hitting. There would be certain situations where all I had to do was hit a ground ball to shortstop and I tried to hit it over the Left Field Lounge. I think that led to a lot of strikeouts in a lot of crucial situations that hurt us in the long run.”
Powers said he was eager to take a swing at a pitch from someone not wearing maroon.
“Intersquads are important, but the last time we played against somebody that’s not our team was in August,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you play each other so much that you get sick of looking at each other, and you want to beat up on somebody else.”
But Mississippi State cannot afford to take its first opponent lightly.
Rhode Island’s head coach was an honorable mention last season for College Baseball Insider’s National Coach of the Year, as he led his Rams to victories over No. 8 Miami, No. 11 Oklahoma and No. 25 Ohio State en route to a program-best 37-win season and is projected to post similar marks this year.
Opening pitch at Dudy Noble is set today for 4 p.m., with a 2 p.m. Saturday matchup to follow, before closing out the series Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m.