Coming Alive At The Dish
March 24, 2022 | Baseball, Joel Coleman
After a slow start, Mississippi State’s offense now flashing its might.
STARKVILLE – It's one of baseball's oldest adages. The season is a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's impossible to take a small sample size and extrapolate it over the course of a full campaign.
It's why, as Mississippi State's 2022 offense got off to a slow start over its first nine games, optimism was still high. Hope was very much there that the Bulldogs – over the course of the year – would eventually flash their might.
Remember, it's a marathon. Not a sprint. Low and behold, as the calendar gets into late March, MSU's bats are indeed appearing to have hit their stride.
"Really, it's probably just seeing more pitches and getting more at-bats," third baseman Kamren James said, trying to explain the offensive uptick. "Last year, some guys started out slow and ended up having some of the better years in the SEC. So, I think it's just getting at-bats under your belt."
Repetition. Comfort. Seeing pitches day in and day out. Those things matter. And now, it's obvious the Diamond Dawgs are settling in. You can see it with your eyeballs on the diamond, but the proof is in the numbers as well. Just look at the turnaround over the last three weeks.
In the last 13 games, State has scored a whopping 127 runs. That's just under 10 runs a game. Compare that to the first nine games of the year when the Bulldogs plated 58 runs and averaged closer to six runs a contest.
The last 13 ballgames have seen Mississippi State score double-digit runs in eight of them, including each of the last three and four of the last five.
The Bulldogs have scored 45 runs total the last three times out – a 15-runs-per-game average – making a distant memory out of those first nine games of the season when MSU scored four or less in nearly half of those and battled inconsistency.
"As an offense, we've been trying to find out a lot about ourselves, and the last four or five games I felt like we have been pretty good offensively," head coach Chris Lemonis said.
The improvements have come from up and down the lineup.
Right fielder Kellum Clark started the year 0-for-16. He's 18-for-47 since (that's a .383 batting average) with seven homers, four doubles and 21 RBI.
"He's crushing the ball," James said of Clark. "It seems like every time he steps to the plate, he's hitting something 100 miles per hour or more."
And how about second baseman RJ Yeager? The transfer from Mercer began the campaign 2-for-his-first-22 with just one RBI and without an extra-base hit. He's now 15-for-his-last-36 (a .417 clip) with five homers, three doubles and 18 RBI in that span.
"I think he's just an older guy that's even-keeled," James said of Yeager. "Even when he's doing bad or struggling like he was earlier in the year, he stays confident. He keeps a good attitude. He's just a really good player and I didn't doubt that even when he was struggling a little bit. I knew he was a good player. He showed us that in the fall. He showed us that in spring training. He's going to be a really good player the whole year."
It's been a well-balanced attack for the Bulldogs. James, Brad Cumbest and Hunter Hines are all hitting .321 or better. Yeager, Logan Tanner and Kellum Clark aren't far behind with none of them more than 14 points away from the .300 mark.
And while Luke Hancock's average is a bit lower, but at a still-respectable .268, he's got a .419 on-base percentage and is second on the team in runs scored.
Outfielder Jess Davis has helped spark some MSU offense of late as he's started in the leadoff spot in each of the last five games and has six hits in that span. He's also walked three times and scored five Bulldog runs over the same stretch.
Davis provides speed. Hines, Cumbest and Clark are delivering the pop. They lead the club with seven home runs apiece.
The Bulldogs are now third in the Southeastern Conference in total home runs and are the only squad in the league with three different players with seven or more dingers.
As the weather starts to heat up, the Bulldogs are too. The question now becomes, is it possible they could get even better?
"It's hard to say there's more in the tank, but I guess you can always say that," James said. "I'm not sure we've really seen a game where everybody, one through nine [in the batting order] has had a great game. That's probably rare in baseball, but I like where we're at and I'm confident in where we're going."
It'd be hard for the Bulldogs to be anything but confident now from an offensive standpoint, given the gaudy numbers they're starting to accumulate – even if they don't fully grasp how far they've come at the plate in recent days.
"I don't think they realize [how good the numbers are]," Lemonis said. "I didn't realize it until [it was mentioned]. They're just fighting to have good at-bats every time…You'd be amazed at how little we look at stats. We look at our opponents."
And that next opponent is Alabama this weekend for Mississippi State's SEC home-opening series. The Bulldogs will try to keep on surging with the sticks against the Crimson Tide.
"I feel like we're getting hot at a good time," James said. "Obviously the more runs we score, the more comfortable we feel."
