DOMINANCE: Mississippi State Bulldogs Offense and Pitching BOTH FLEX STRENGTHS in BLOWOUTS

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Mississippi State just rolled through their regional. What's possible for this team?

[00:00:10]>> You are a [music] Locked On Mississippi State, your daily podcast on the Mississippi State Bulldogs, [music] part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

[00:00:23]>> Welcome to Locked On Mississippi State.

[00:00:24]I'm your host Landon McBride and today we're going to talk about that regional weekend. You know, we'll break down game by game, kind of next segment go over, you know, what we learned, what are the big takeaways from this weekend and then top dog of the week and there were a lot of options on coming from this weekend.

[00:00:44]So, you watched my preview for this regional series from Friday, I came away kind of unimpressed by who was who the Bulldogs are going to be facing and everything I said was, you know, if as long as the Bulldogs don't beat themselves, this should be a pretty easy weekend and it turned out to be one. I mean, if you look at, you know, you go back kind of think about the games, look at the box scores, see where things, you know, see where the pressure came from, outside of it being 1-1 against Cincinnati for three innings, there wasn't really a whole lot of pressure applied to this team this weekend and that speaks to what this team has done all year. They have beat the teams they are supposed to beat.

[00:01:35]Going into the series, uh, I believe there were only two teams that did not have a Q3 or Q4 loss on the year.

[00:01:42]Mississippi State was one of them.

[00:01:44]And I don't know if any of these teams would have, I mean, I'm sure Lipscomb would have fallen into one of those, but I don't know exactly where Cincinnati or Louisiana would have fallen in on that whole quadrant thing, but you don't have to worry about it cuz he took care of business. And this team really just rolled through and it was a a combination. The offense looked good.

[00:02:05]Offensively very good, actually. And it was came from a bunch of different places. So, Ace Reese had some big moments. Obviously, Garrett Frey, monster weekend for him. Another big weekend for Jacob Parker. Uh Reed Stallman got in on the action here and there. We saw some pop from Woodson, Malouski. I mean, everywhere up and down the lineup.

[00:02:24]>> [snorts] >> This team looked really good every game. I mean, they're when you when you're putting up about 10 runs a game, it's hard to really sit there and say that the offense isn't cooking. And they were.

[00:02:38]And they did it in different ways. They did it with singles, they did it with home runs, some doubles, some well-timed walks. You know, those are always You always love the RBI walk. Big fan of that easy RBI, which Jacob Parker got one of those.

[00:02:51]And then the pitching. The starters The starters did their job. Friday was the one, the Lipscomb game that I was a little um I wasn't sure what they were going to do. And I understood the plan, put Duke Stone out there.

[00:03:02]He's kind of, you know, with McPherson back, he's your number three starter.

[00:03:05]Duke Stone, he's had moments of just brilliance, but he's kind of struggled a bit. So, you put him out against Lipscomb and brilliance was back. Uh six innings, three hits, no walks, 10 Ks, one wild pitch.

[00:03:19]Uh you can't ask I mean, if that's your ace going out there and doing that, you're happy with it. You can't ask for more from a guy than what you got from Duke Stone on Friday. And because he went six innings, you only had to get three innings out of your bullpen, which allowed you not to go deep into that, which is huge in these tournaments because you know, you never know exactly how many games you're going to end up playing. So, saving your bullpen is always always massive.

[00:03:47]I did think Cincinnati was the team that had the potential to give our Bulldogs as much the most trouble and it's because they had a couple really, really good hitters. They had like three guys that had high averages, big home run totals, all that.

[00:04:02]They The pitching kept them in check, which is not shocking with Lincoln on the mound. He went out there and he gave up I mean, he gave up three earned runs. Yes, but I mean, one of them was before the game was while the game was still, you know, in doubt, I guess, cuz it was the second inning or third inning.

[00:04:24]Yeah, second inning. Sorry. Um but yeah, the rest were eighth and ninth runs when you're already up 10 to one. I mean, you don't love giving up those runs, but it's it is what it is. Like, who cares? It was just they're padding their stats in the losing effort. But Lincoln is kind of looks like he's back seven and third innings.

[00:04:44]Three runs, two walks, 10 Ks. Very good inning. He threw 112 pitches, which is big.

[00:04:50]Um him going into next weekend is something to watch. I mean, we've talked about the number of pitches he's thrown, how deep he's gone into games all season. It's really something to watch at this point because you're playing better competition. You want your guy your ace at on their best game, but man, it's hard when you're throwing this many pitches, but he's still he's still holding up. Uh Maddox Webb only gave you a third of an inning, but he walked two, so not a good showing for him.

[00:05:16]Uh Ben Davis came in, closed the door, gave up a run, but two runs, one earned, so bullpen mostly looked pretty good. I mean, when you give up two earned runs through the first two games, you're looking good there.

[00:05:30]Uh big story, though, that really what we're all have been thinking about for about the last two months is Ryan McPherson. Uh he's back. He threw 83 pitches, so pitch count's not an issue. If he's up there throwing 80 83 pitches next weekend him hitting 90. That's it didn't matter. He's back to full go at this point. Um obviously I mean it took him five innings yeah, two earned runs, seven Ks. So he's back. Might not quite be McFerrin from the beginning of the year, but he's still very good. And he's back to where full go. He's looking good.

[00:06:12]Uh so that's huge for this team having him back because that means going into next weekend you have your full compliment of starters. You know who your one, your two, your three are. What order you pitch them in, that's something we'll uh obviously go deep into uh later when we do a preview uh later this week when we preview the that series, but pitching is back.

[00:06:35]The hitting looked really good this week. Um so many guys with multiple RBI games. Um I mean Vitek Lencius looked really good this weekend which we mentioned how anytime he's in it seems to be good things. And Vitek Lencius went out there for a I mean one two RBI game on a three hit and another two uh then he had one for two with couple walks.

[00:07:02]Another RBI another I mean he's just a guy who goes out there and get job done.

[00:07:06]And yes, I said his last name Lencius called Tomas Lencius. So I didn't realize I mean I knew this but I didn't realize it till recently even though they're brothers they choose to pronounce their last name differently which um I think also led to some of mine and Jared's confusion earlier in the year when we were talking about the two of them was we were hearing both, but yeah.

[00:07:26]Two brothers choose different pronunciations. Interesting little nugget there, but overall team looked very good. They played clean for the most part.

[00:07:36]Cuz that's always something I worry about with this team and you know, what is it?

[00:07:42]Two errors over three games. Not perfect, but you know, you'll take it.

[00:07:47]It gets the job done.

[00:07:49]Um I think only one of them led to one earned one earned unearned run. Got to learn to talk at some point, but uh So, that's really good. Bats are cooking.

[00:08:00]Pitching is now kind of set.

[00:08:03]You're seeing that fall into place.

[00:08:06]And you're playing clean baseball.

[00:08:08]Things are starting to come together at the right time for this team. Uh another big thing, you didn't have to stretch your best relievers too much this weekend because your bats took care of their job. That was something that concerned me with one, Duke Stone kind of been Jekyll and Hyde this year. You I mean, you assume with the Lipscomb start he was going to be good, but you're just never 100% sure. Sometimes he can get a little wild, so you have to pull him earlier even if he's having a good start just because of pitch count. Between him and not being 100% sure where McPherson was going to be in terms of how deep he can go into the game.

[00:08:40]>> [snorts] >> Having not having to dip too much into your best relievers is probably the biggest thing for this weekend because keeps them fresh. And at this point, everyone's tired. Everyone's a little banged up. You got to come up with little ways to get guys uh just a little bit of rest, a little bit of time to get healthy. But I mean, when they call your name in these kind of situations, the juices are going to be flowing and you're going to forget how tired you are. But all in all, this weekend went as good as uh you know, anyone could have hoped.

[00:09:15]There was, like I said, no real stress on anyone, any team, any game. Pretty much just sailed through this easily.

[00:09:22]So, I mean, there That's just what it is. It was not a tough draw. And with how they were able to jump on Cincinnati in that second game, you really kind of pulled back what their bats could possibly do because you had such a big lead. It didn't really matter. They weren't going to mount that kind of comeback against you. So, the bats made it easy on the pitching and the pitching did good even if the bats weren't going to be there. So, very complete weekend. Not much else you could really ask for this team from this team in terms of what they could have done. So, coming to the next one, kind of just talk a little bit more big picture, kind of what we learned, and what I'm looking forward to seeing going forward.

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[00:11:53]All right. So, what is the big takeaway?

[00:11:56]What do we learn from a regional series that went as good as it possibly could for your team and exactly how you kind of thought it would.

[00:12:08]Uh or at least how I thought it would.

[00:12:10]It's good to see like how many runs they scored. I thought they would be in control, but glad they hit at least 10 runs in every game. That was big. I really feel like these are some pitching staffs you should jump on and they did.

[00:12:22]So, what are the big takeaways here?

[00:12:24]Hit on a little bit in the previous segment, but it's right McPhearson. He's back. Mentioned 83 pitches, five innings, two earned and seven Ks.

[00:12:34]It's a good start.

[00:12:35]It's not the McPhearson we had at the beginning everyone we were like, "Man, him and Velinkus are on 1A 1B. We got two aces. We're rolling."

[00:12:43]Um With him, you know, obviously he's still working back, but he looks good. Um I can't say exactly, you know, watching him what the difference is between, you know, there's nothing jumping out. He's just probably He's just probably not quite as sharp as he was early in the year. There's nothing that's really jumping out specifically that makes him makes it feel like he just isn't quite as effective, but it's I just feel like he needs a little bit more time to get back to where he was before. Um But, having him back and having him be a full go at 80 plus pitches, be another week, you know, he'll have some time before his next start. So, having him back, it pushes everything into place. Cuz you'll have Velinkus Now, how O'Connor ends up structuring the pitching staff is uh We'll see how that shakes out, but for turn like Linkus your ace, your number one, he's the guy you're going to look to put in the situation that you feel like when he's on the mound we got the win.

[00:13:42]McPherson you still feel that way about because of who he is and what he's given to this team, but he's not quite there or at least he hasn't been done and he won't be next week cuz all the signs are pointing that he's getting closer and closer to being the dominant force he was earlier in the year, but I mean he's your number two now.

[00:13:57]He slots there, boom. Duke Stone your number three, boom.

[00:14:01]And when you have those defined roles I don't know what it is about baseball with these whole like pitchers in defined roles when you know who is who and who's getting the ball what day and what role everyone fits into, things just go smoother.

[00:14:15]Um and it just might be a mentality thing from the players like they know what their job is a little bit more.

[00:14:20]There's not as much uncertainty as when their number's going to be called and so they're just able to go out there take care of business a little bit better.

[00:14:26]But having those guys in those roles also helps your bullpen because we saw so many times over those last um the last month month and a half bullpen was getting taxed because if Valinkus didn't give you seven seven and two thirds eight innings something like that you're still having to put out one of your pitchers that day and then Duke Stone's pitching well but he's only giving you five innings so that's four you have to come up with from your bullpen and then who knows what was going to happen in that third game without McPherson.

[00:14:57]So with how much work the bullpen had to do to get this team here to now kind of get to not take a step back take a little bit of a step back because there's not much weight is going to be put on him now cuz McPherson's back. The guys who we were seeing who you know, we were out there like I don't really love seeing him out there cuz you know, Billingsley was kind of you know, is this term of Jekyll and Hyde situation? Some days he'd be great, some days he'd be coughing up too many runs.

[00:15:25]So, you have those guys that you didn't really trust, you know, outing after outing after outing.

[00:15:30]You don't have to put them out there anymore. Now, you really only have to rely on the guys you trust, which is exactly what you want when you get to this point in the year. We're at the point where everything should be figured out and it finally seems like it is.

[00:15:51]Cuz I know early in the year when we were talking about this team, it was man, there's a lot of question marks.

[00:15:55]You got new coaches, you got so many new players. You have some of the returning players who will be stepping into new roles.

[00:16:01]It's going to take a while to figure out what this team was.

[00:16:04]And right as it seemed like we were understanding what this team was, the McPherson injury happened. And then you had a few other injuries like Aiden Teal was on and off the field so much. Um you know, a couple other things. Ace Reese got dinged up a little bit. I don't ever think he missed a full game, but he missed parts of games here and there. So, I mean, there's just a lot of little things that just kept happening.

[00:16:23]And shortstop, we weren't sure who the shortstop was going to be. Kind of went back and forth and then Ryder Woodson kind of put out. Then he had a lot of errors.

[00:16:30]It shifted and Drew Waters had a really good stretch, you know, it's back to Woodson. It's just been one of those teams where it seems like for as good as they were all season and the expectations that they had on them, every question should have been answered a long time ago and it kind of seems like we're finally there. It seems like this team has finally settled into what it is, who they are, and it's showing. Like these guys are I it's just one of those things, it seems like they've taken and also some of that comes from the emergence of Jacob Parker.

[00:17:07]He he was kind of getting spot playing time early on and then you look at this and he was uh he's batting cleanup three across all three regional games.

[00:17:19]Putting a freshman in that situation, you're starting him in right field, and not only do you start him, the man delivers.

[00:17:25]Two RBIs in one game.

[00:17:27]Um one for two with three runs, no RBIs in another game. The other game he went three for four with or two for four with three runs, three RBIs.

[00:17:39]I mean, that's your freshman that you're popping in the middle of your lineup, and he's doing that. Things are going right for this team. They're playing well at the right time.

[00:17:50]The pitching staff is coming together with McPhearson coming back. Jack Bauer seems to have claimed his role as kind of the first guy out of the bullpen after the starter. You saw him do that for McPhearson in this one and against Louisiana in the finale for this, but that's just kind of seemed to be his role. And that's the role I think fits him really well, you know, having a guy come out of the bullpen that's hitting 103, that's not something any team any batter wants to see. Ben Davis, he gave up three earned runs, still very good outing for him. Pitzer in the back of the bullpen, another two innings, one hit, one walk, one strikeout, no earned run or yeah, no earned runs.

[00:18:31]Great, that's what you want from him.

[00:18:34]The pitching staff has figured itself out, the lineup is settled, and everything is starting to click for this team.

[00:18:41]Problem is is it enough?

[00:18:46]That's my question, and it's one me and Jared will talk about later in the week.

[00:18:50]You got Georgia now.

[00:18:52]The team that you are owing for against this year.

[00:18:55]Going into their house in a super regional.

[00:18:59]You were close a few times, but a couple times they kind of handed it to you.

[00:19:03]Is McPhearson being back and the lineup really being just clicking just right, is that enough to beat Georgia next week?

[00:19:16]We'll see.

[00:19:17]I'm not sure yet. I love what I'm seeing from this team. This weekend could not have gone better.

[00:19:22]Uh kind of wish we'd seen him play like like this a little bit earlier in the year, but hey, getting hot at the right time might mean more in this college baseball postseason than just about any other postseason tournament across college and pro.

[00:19:40]Uh because you just get a pitcher that gets hot, you can ride him. You get a couple of batters that get hot, you ride them.

[00:19:45]And it's all falling into place. See how far it can take us, but All right. Coming up next, we will I will give you my top dog of the weekend.

[00:20:03]All right, it is time for the top dog of the week.

[00:20:11]Okay, I went back and forth on this a lot before I got on here because there were so many good performances this weekend.

[00:20:22]When you score minimum of 10 runs every game and you have multiple pitchers hit double-digit strikeouts, you have options for top dog of the week. And because of that, um I'm going to give out two.

[00:20:37]One for a pitcher, one for a hitter.

[00:20:40]Uh for a pitcher, it's Duke Stone.

[00:20:42]When you get six innings of shutout ball, you only give up three hits, you get 10 strikeouts, you took care of business.

[00:20:49]That's what we saw from him middle of the year when he was really starting to establish himself as a very good starter. This is what you were getting start after start after start.

[00:20:59]And if if he's back to doing this, let's go. We can ride with these three guys as starters. And Duke Stone had an awesome start. I know it was lit against Lipscomb. Hey, they're a tournament team. They're a good team. You don't apologize for wins. He went out there, took care of business.

[00:21:15]So, on the hitting side, this one was a little bit harder because there were so many guys who had good good weekends. I mean, it's crazy the amount of offense this team put up.

[00:21:35]And in the end, it kind of came down to two guys for me.

[00:21:39]Reed Trimble and Jacob Parker were the two guys that I I mean, and I will actually three, excuse me, Garrett Frey, another one. Those three guys all had awesome awesome series. I feel like I give it to Jacob Parker every weekend and I mean, I'm just a huge fan of how he plays the game. So, I think that's why, but to buck the trend of me giving it to him every week, I'm going with Garrett Frey. The man had an awesome weekend.

[00:22:08]Um I mean, he had was it five RBIs across the whole weekend.

[00:22:15]Couple home runs. He had the lead-off home run in the final game, really set the tone, let Louisiana know that they weren't they weren't forcing another game.

[00:22:23]Uh to have your lead up lead-off guy doing stuff like that, that's huge in these types of situations. So, he played great this whole weekend, really set the tone for the offense. So, Frey, you get Frey Frey, Duke Stone, you two guys top co-top dogs of the week.

[00:22:40]But, that is going to do it for me today.

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