Diamond Dawg Gameday: host UT Martin
Mississippi State and UT Martin meet for 10th time in program history, first since 2016
STARKVILLE – A five game homestand will start on Tuesday (May 11) as the No. 2 Mississippi State baseball program welcomes UT Martin to Dudy Noble Field for a 6:30 p.m. first pitch.
Mississippi State (35-11) is coming off of a 3-1 week that saw a series victory at South Carolina follow a midweek win over The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. UT Martin (15-26) dropped all three games last weekend at Murray State, but is 1-1 in midweek tilts versus SEC opponents, beating Alabama and losing a one-run game to Vanderbilt.
Tanner Allen continues to be one of the hottest hitters in the Southeastern Conference, as he is hitting .406 in conference play though 24 games. Overall, Allen is the only baseball student-athlete in the SEC with at least a .300 batting average that ranks among the top 15 in hits, runs and RBIs in the conference. He enters the final two weeks of the regular season ranked No. 2 in the SEC with a .379 average, leads the conference in hits (66), ranks No. 3 in the SEC in runs (50) and No. 7 in RBIs (46).
Making his second midweek start of the season, Cade Smith tossed three shutout innings at The Citadel last week to earn his second career victory. He faced just nine batters in the start and gave up one hit. He fanned three and rolled one double play to face the minimum on the night.
For UT Martin, they dropped an extra-inning affair in the first game of a doubleheader on Friday and lost after leading in the seventh inning on Saturday in the series finale. Casey Harford leads of the offense with a .288 batting average, 44 hits and 31 RBIs. Will LaFollette has a team-best 11 home runs.
Gameday Info
Tuesday, May 11 (6:30 p.m.)
Probable Starters
MSU: Cade Smith, RHP, Fr.
UTM: Eric Steensma, RHP, Fr.
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Quick Hitters
- Mississippi State will spend its 12th straight week ranked among the top five by at least one major poll, sitting as high as No. 2 by Perfect Game. FULL POLLS ON PAGE 6
- The Mississippi State pitching staff posted another solid week on the mound with a 2.17 ERA and 49 strikeouts to just 14 walks in 37 1/3 innings of work over four games. Opponents hit just .190 against the staff and MSU allowed only nine earned runs over four games.
- On the mound, Mississippi State posted three more double-digit strikeout games in four tries last weekend to move its season total to an NCAA-leading 589 strikeouts. In 46 games this season, State had piled up 10-plus punchouts in 39 of those contests.
- Tanner Allen hit his 20th career home run on Sunday at South Carolina to make him just the second Diamond Dawg in program history with 50 doubles, 20 home runs and 10 triples in a career. He currently sits tied for No. 7 all-time in doubles (53), tied for No. 4 in triples (11) and tied for No. 36 in home runs (20).
- Allen is just three hits shy of becoming the eighth Diamond Dawg in program history to reach 250 hits, 150 RBIs and 150 runs scored. The left-handed hitter sits at 247 hits with 154 runs scored and 162 RBIs.
- Rowdey Jordan reached base in all four games of the road trip to push his reached base streak to 31 games, which is tied for the fifth longest since 2009 with Elijah MacNamee (2018).
- Starting pitchers Christian MacLeod and Will Bednar became the 97th and 98th Diamond Dawgs, respectively, to reach the 100-strikeout mark for a career. MacLeod fanned six to move it career total to 114, while Bednar fanned 13 and now has 103 for his career.
- Head coach Chris Lemonis sits at 99 wins during his tenure at Mississippi State (129 games coached) and looks to become the fastest head coach in program history to reach the 100-win mark. Pat McMahon reached the 100-win mark in his 146th career game as head coach, while Ron Polk took 150 games to reach the 100-win mark.
- Entering the week, Mississippi State is 29-1 in midweek contests over the last three seasons, including a perfect 11-0 mark during the 2021 season. The Diamond Dawgs went 15-0 in the midweek during the 2019 season and was 3-1 in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic cut the season short.
Scouting the Opponent
- UT Martin enters with a 15-26 record on the season after dropping all three games to Murray State over the weekend. The Skyhawks held a lead after six innings in two of the three games, only to drop the series opener in extra innings before allowing four runs in the final two frames to lose the series finale.
- As an offense, UT Martin is averaging 5.0 runs per game and 8.2 hits per game, however they own almost a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio at the plate.
- The pitching staff has a 2.48 strikeout-to-walk ratio on season with a .268 batting average against. The staff has issued just 137 walks on the season but have hit 50 batters and allowed 376 hits in 352 2/3 innings of work.
- Casey Harford leads of the offense with a .288 batting average, 44 hits and 31 RBIs. Christian Hall also has 31 RBIs to go along with a .280 batting average and a team-best 29 runs scored.
- Will LaFollette has 38 hits, with 18 going for extra bases, including 11 home runs.
Series Notes
- Mississippi State and UT Martin will meet for the 10th time in program history on Tuesday, with State grabbing wins in the previous nine games.
- The two programs first met during the 2000 season in a pair of midweek games at Dudy Noble Field. State won the games on Tuesday and Wednesday by scores of 16-1 and 14-3, respectively.
- The last meeting came during the 2016 season when State won a 14-0 decision at Dudy Noble Field on April 5.
- Overall, four of the previous nine meetings have been decided by five or more runs, while the 2002 meeting was a one-run game and a 2016 meeting was a two-run contest.