'No panic': Why Mississippi State baseball feels fine in spite of shaky SEC Tournament run
HOOVER, Ala. – Jake Mangum wasn't shy in saying what happened at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium on Friday.
"We got punched in the mouth tonight," he said.
The LSU Tigers threw haymakers from the left and right. The Mississippi State Bulldogs absorbed all of them and hardly fought back in a 12-2 run-rule loss. Mangum went 0-for-3 in the game as the MSU offense looked feeble once again.
In their final 30 innings in Hoover, the Bulldogs managed to score a total of four runs. Mississippi State had a collective batting average of .203 during the three-game SEC Tournament run.
And yet, Mangum doesn't seem worried about where the batting order stands heading into next week's NCAA Tournament Regional Round.
"There's no panic," Mangum said. "There's no need for too much concern. We know what we have to do, and we'll be better at it."
"We get six days to get right, and that's a long time in baseball days," Mangum added. "We get six days to fine tune our swings, fine tune our mental approach at the plate, and for me, that's really getting back to the basics of hitting and just finding a groove."
Mississippi State batters Josh Hatcher (left), Rowdey Jordan (right) and the rest of the Bulldogs are happy to be heading home to play in the Starkville Regional.
Mangum immediately mentioned Mississippi State's Friday night ace Ethan Small after that. He said the MSU offense doesn't have to make a dramatic turnaround by Game 1 of the Starkville Regional because the team knows Small, who is 8-2 this season with a 1.80 ERA, will likely pitch a gem at Dudy Noble Field.
Both of Small's losses, though, came in games in which he pitched 7.0 innings. The first was against Southern Miss in February; he didn't allow a run that day as MSU still lost 1-0 in 10 innings. The Bulldogs also lost 1-0 against Vanderbilt in Small's start Thursday.
Mississippi State can't rely on its pitchers to be perfect at this point. SEC Freshman of the Year JT Ginn got shelled against LSU on Friday, and the MSU offense only backed him up with two runs. State had its chances to stay competitive but failed to capitalize on them. The Dogs were 6-for-41 (.146) with runners in scoring position this week.
"In baseball, you're going to have your ups and downs," Mangum said. "It's tough."
The good news for Mississippi State is that most of those "ups" have occurred on the friendly soils of Dudy Noble Field, where the team will play through the Super Regional round if it makes it that far.
Mangum is aware of how much of a home-field advantage Mississippi State has at home. The Diamond Dawgs are 32-5 at Dudy Noble this season. The bats perform much better there, which bodes well for everyone in the lineup.
Fan support should be at an all-time high as well.
"I cannot emphasize enough how much we need that place rocking," Mangum said. "We need a big crowd this weekend for our regional to help us out and win the tournament."
Mangum hasn't played postseason baseball in front of his home crowd since his freshman season. He believes that the adrenaline alone might help him return to form. It might also help the team as a whole get back to the run-producing ways of the past.
Whether or not that's true is to be determined, but one thing is for certain: the coaches and players inside Mississippi State's locker room are not worried about falling flat in the upcoming regional despite doing so in Hoover.
"We'll be alright," Lemonis said. "We'll get back in there and get these guys going."
"There's never been a better time for it to happen than now," Mangum added.
Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!