Diamond Dogs Hit Road For Series At No. 8 Kentucky
Game times (CDT) are set for 5:30 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. Saturday and 12 p.m. Sunday. Saturday’s game will be televised by FOX SportSouth with Nick Belmonte and Bob Kesling describing the action.
The radio broadcasts of all three games featuring the MSU broadcast tandem of Jim Ellis and Bart Gregory will be carried on the statewide MSU Baseball Radio Network. Live online audio streaming is also available to HailStateTV subscribers (http://www.hailstate.com/hstvlive).
The Bulldogs enter their first SEC road series having topped No. 2 LSU 10-2 in Sunday’s series finale at Dudy Noble Field and Alcorn State 7-6 in a Tuesday night game in Starkville. State jumped out to a 7-0 lead through six innings en route to its win over defending SEC champ LSU and had to erase a 5-0 second-inning deficit to become the second 20-game winner in the Southeastern Conference in 2013.
Sophomore southpaw Jacob Lindgren (2-0, 1.85) is expected to open on the hill for the Bulldogs in the weekend series-opener. Kentucky has designated sophomore lefty A.J. Reed (2-2, 2.83) as the Wildcats’ Friday starter
Mississippi State enters its second conference series of the campaign with a league-leading .322 team batting average. Junior shortstop Adam Frazier (.415), with an SEC-leading 39 hits and 29 runs scored, has hit safely in 21 of 24 games, while power-hitting Bulldog outfielder Hunter Renfroe (.408) leads the club with 30 RBI, 15 extra-base hits and a league-best .817 slugging percentage.
The Bulldog pitching staff sports a 2.27 earned run average with a league-best 225 strikeouts while State’s defense has registered a league-best 32 double plays.
State claimed four of the five MSU-UK meetings in 2012. On the final weekend of league play the Bulldogs knocked the Wildcats off the top spot in the SEC standings with a three-game series sweep at Dudy Noble Field and the following week split a pair of games en route to winning the 2012 SEC Baseball Tournament.