Diamond Dogs Open Road Swing With No. 11 Golden Eagles
May 25, 2016 | Baseball
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Mississippi State renews its long-running baseball rivalry with No. 11 Southern Mississippi Tuesday night when the Diamond Dogs (17-10) and the Golden Eagles (24-4) open a two-game set at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg, Miss. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on the statewide MSU Baseball Radio Network.
Hattiesburg is the first stop on a run of six consecutive games away from home for the Bulldogs. State resumes SEC competition and opens a three-game Easter weekend series Friday at 6:30 p.m. EDT at the University of Kentucky and then takes on Mississippi in the 25th annual Entergy/Mayor's Trophy Game Apr. 13 (6:30 p.m.) at Jackson's Smith-Wills Stadium.
Junior lefty Eric Ebers (2-1, 5.27) and true freshman right-hander Josh Johnson (2-1, 3.58) are MSU's projected starting pitchers against the Golden Eagles. USM will start right-hander Daniel Best (2-2, 4.85) in Tuesday's series-opener.
This week's meetings will be the 97th and 98th for Mississippi State and Southern Miss in a rivalry that dates back to 1947. MSU and USM have met in two-game midweek series each of the past four years, with the teams splitting each two-game set. The Bulldogs prevailed 6-4 in last year's series-opener before the Golden Eagles evened the count with a 5-2 win in the second game.
Mississippi State registered its second win over a top five-ranked opponent last Saturday with a 7-3 verdict over No. 4 Mississippi. The Rebels claimed the series opener 7-1 and won the series with a closely-contested 4-2 decision in Sunday's series finale. The Rebels out-hit the Bulldogs 31-21 (.290 to .221).
Sophomore left fielder Jeff Butts (.297) paced the Bulldogs at the plate, hitting .715 (5x7) for the weekend. he was the lone Bulldog to have a hit in all three games.
Junior right-hander Alan Johnson (1-1, 5.74) drew his first SEC Saturday start and picked up his initial win of the year in State's 7-5 win over Mississippi. Junior righty Saunders Ramsey (3-0, 0.00) extended his string of scoreless innings of relief pitching to 21-1/3 innings and earned his fourth save with 3.1 innings of shutout game-closing relief.
MORE TOUGH OPPOSITION - Southern Miss moved up to No. 11 in this week's Baseball America rankings and is the fifth ranked opponent faced by the 2004 Diamond Dogs. Heading into the two-game set, 10 of MSU's last 13 games have come against nationally-ranked opponents (No. 19 Tennessee, No. 30 Birmingham-Southern, No. 1 LSU and No. 4 Mississippi). Still to come are No. 16 Auburn and No. 17 Florida.
HOMETOWN HEROES RETURN - Two members of MSU's 31-player travel squad hail from Hattiesburg, Miss., and played their high school baseball at Hattiesburg High School - fifth-year senior pitcher and team co-captain Jeff Lacher (2-4, 4.86) and sophomore catcher Craig Tatum (.320). Lacher, MSU's Sunday starter, will not be seeing game time during the two-game visit to the Hub City, but Tatum has drawn starts behind the dish in all 27 games. Tatum is on the watch list for this year's Johnny Bench Award.
SCOUTING USM - The Golden Eagles extended their current winning streak to six games with a three-game sweep of Conference USA foe TCU (19-6, 4-3, 9-5). USM has won eight of its last nine games and leads CUSA with a 7-2 mark. Corky Palmer is in his seventh season at USM and has compiled a 236-151 record over that span, 5-8 against Mississippi State.
COMMON FOES - MSU and USM have faced five common foes - South Alabama, Louisiana Tech, UL-Monroe, Mississippi and Mississippi Valley State. State is 7-1 against those teams while USM is 7-1.
