Only The First Page
February 18, 2022 | Baseball, Joel Coleman
Bulldogs move forward and quickly move on from Opening Day defeat.
STARKVILLE – How many times did you hear it last year?
If Tanner Allen said it once, he must've said it a thousand different times. Never too high. Never too low. Without that type of attitude, the rollercoaster ride that is the baseball season can throw you right off the rails.
For Mississippi State, Friday was a day to turn the page from 2021's national championship season that featured Allen. But after the No. 3 Bulldogs fell 3-0 to the No. 24 Long Beach State Dirtbags, it appeared the former MSU hero's positive impact could still be felt – and heard – from the Diamond Dawgs still around.
"I think the message from the older guys to the younger guys last year is the same message I'm trying to pass on now," pitcher Landon Sims said. "It's a long season. We played 68 games last year. Game 1, we won. It was a really fun game last year. But what we did on Game 68 was a lot more important than what we did on Game 1. Just kind of doing everything we can to let [teammates] know it's a long [season]."
That's baseball, another Bulldog legend with his name engraved on State's home park might say. Whether it's the middle of May, or in this case February 18th, on any given day you might run into an opposing pitcher in a groove. The bats could go silent. It happens. It sure did on Friday.
MSU mustered just one hit. Long Beach State starter Luis Ramirez was masterful – taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning before freshman Bulldog Hunter Hines singled to left to break it up. But wouldn't you know it? Hines was thrown out trying to stretch his hit into a double.
It was just that kind of day for MSU. Odds are, there'll be more of them along this four-or-five-month-long journey. Baseball isn't avoiding challenges or bad days. It's pressing on through them. And that's precisely this group's plan.
"[Saturday is] a new day," catcher Logan Tanner said, already looking ahead to the 2 p.m. affair. "We've just got to come out here and compete. We've got to do better than we did [Friday]. You can't win a game getting one base hit and only getting on base three or four times. It wasn't a great offensive performance, but we've got to come out and be better."
Yes, the Bulldogs can be better. Much better. But Friday wasn't a day without at least a bright spot or two.
It could get quickly forgotten given the end result, but Sims transitioned masterfully from last year's unhittable closer to this year's Friday night ace. The final line: Seven innings pitched. Only five hits allowed (most on soft contact). One run (on maybe the only hard-hit ball – a seventh-inning solo homer off the bat of Long Beach State's Kaden Moeller). No walks. A whopping 13 strikeouts.
It was total dominance.
"He was really good," Tanner – the guy with the best view of Sims in the ballpark – said. "He had everything working. He had one bad pitch that cost him, but other than that…you can't ask for much more. When your starter gives you [13 strikeouts over seven innings] and gives up one run, you should win that game."
Should, and most of the time will – but not on Friday. The MSU Opening Day record crowd of 10,223 fans were sent home without the first-game cherry on top they were hoping for.
If the fans, the Bulldogs, or anyone else needed a reminder, Friday was it. Last year's championship doesn't suddenly make this game we all love easy. It's still the same beautifully frustrating contest it has always been.
And the most gorgeous part of it? Tomorrows are always new opportunities.
"I still think they'll be excited to play," head coach Chris Lemonis said of his guys' mentality headed into Saturday. "Another team came in here and beat them and punched them in the nose. It's interesting. It's why we play maybe a tougher schedule than most because we want to play good teams. We want to test ourselves. We're going to get a test real quick."
The testing is certainly underway. But just because you miss the first question doesn't mean you can't still shoot for an 'A'.
The page has already been turned from last year. Now it's time to turn the page from Friday.
"We're going to wake up and it's going to be another baseball game," Tanner said.
