Diamond Dogs Continue Road Run Tuesday At UAB
May 25, 2016 | Baseball
The Bulldogs have won four of their last five games and battled back into the 2004 SEC Tournament picture by winning two of three games last weekend at No. 11 Auburn. State stands ninth in the overall league standings but just three games out of second place in the SEC with four weekends of competition remaining. MSU resumes conference play this weekend in Nashville, Tenn., with a three-game series at Vanderbilt (27-13, 7-11).
UAB enters the week riding a six-game winning streak, their longest since opening the 2004 campaign with seven wins. The Blazers swept a three-game Conference USA series at UNC-Charlotte last weekend and
State has designated freshman Josh Johnson (4-1, 3.92) for starting mound duty Tuesday night against UAB. The right-hander from Caledonia, Miss., has earned earned wins in his last two starts (at Southern Miss Apr. 7 and vs. Memphis Apr. 20) and has registered wins in four of his six midweek starts. Johnson has 34 strikeouts in 39 innings pitched.
Johnson will be matched with UAB sophomore lefty Kyle Northington (1-0, 2.86), who made his first career start and earned a win a week ago in UAB's 13-3 home win over Alabama State. He threw an inning of scoreless relief against MSU Mar. 30 when State nipped UAB 6-5 at Dudy Noble Field.
Brad Corley singled in the tying run in the seventh and Craig Tatum added a one-out game-winning RBI double in the ninth to lift the Bulldogs to the earlier win over the Blazers, State's seventh in a row over UAB.
Freshman second baseman Jeffrey Rea continues to pace the Bulldogs at the plate with a .354 batting average. The Nettleton, Miss., native ended a season-best 14-game hitting streak Sunday at Auburn. Sophomore outfielder Brad Corley enters the week hitting .353 and riding a career and team season-best 16-game hitting streak. Corley, from Louisville, Ky., leads MSU with 60 hits and 42 RBI and with 13 home runs shares the SEC lead with Georgia's Josh Morris. Also warming up at the plate is sophomore first baseman Brad Jones (.345), who has hit safely in his last 10 games.
Senior Steve Gendron added three multi-hit games during the Auburn series, raising his career hits total to 292. He stands fourth on MSU's all-time career hits list and tied for 20th on the SEC's all-time hits charts. The Bulldog co-captain is three hits away from tying Burke Masters (1987-90) for third place among State's career hits leaders. Richard Lee (1995-98) holds the MSU career hits record and ranks third in the SEC with 328.
This week's Mississippi State baseball schedule:
Apr. 27 at UAB (7 p.m. ?€? Network radio broadcast)
Apr. 28 at Birmingham-Southern (6 p.m. ?€? Local radio broadcast)
Apr. 30 at Vanderbilt (7 p.m. ?€? Network radio broadcast)
May 1 at Vanderbilt (4 p.m. ?€? Network radio broadcast)
May 2 at Vanderbilt (1 p.m. ?€? Network radio broadcast)
