Mississippi State came into Taylor Stadium for a big SEC series weekend. The Bulldogs have been hot recently and continued that streak against the Tigers. It was a beautiful night and a beautiful outing for Bulldogs’ pitcher Brandon Smith. The Bulldogs had it all working for them on both sides of the ball. Although Smith gave up 9 hits and 3 ER, he was amazing for the Bulldogs, pitching 7.1 innings, which was a season-high for him. He also had 8 strikeouts, moving to 3-3 on the season.
It was a rough one for the Missouri Tigers as they just fell behind way too early and couldn’t catch up. The Bulldogs stormed out of the gate and never looked back.
It was the RJ Yeager show. In his first three plate appearances, he had three RBI after hitting a solo home run on the very first swing of the game, and then a double, finally another two-run homer. Yeager finished 3-6 with five RBI. It wasn’t just Yeager, all of the Bulldogs were hitting the ball on the screws. The top players to mention were Kellum Clark, with three RBI, going 3-4. Kamren James went 4-5 with two RBI. Finally, Jess Davis went 1-3 with 2 RBI. The Bulldogs finished with 20 hits as a team and scored 13 runs.
Tony Neubeck has been one of Missouri’s top pitchers this year, but couldn’t find it tonight. Neubeck gave up 10 hits and seven earned runs in just 4.0 innings. The tigers had to use five different pitchers which is usually not good in an opening series game.
Although the Tigers didn’t get much offense going tonight there were still some positive things to look at. Josh Day, who usually bats leadoff, found himself in the fifth hole but went 3-4. Torin Montgomery went 2-5. Ross Lovich went 1-4, but had a two-run homer as well. Justin Colon pinch-hit in the bottom of the ninth and immediately got an achievement, as he hit his first collegiate home run.
The Tigers are back in action with the Bulldogs as game two first pitch is set for 2:00 p.m. Spencer Miles (2-4, 6.50 ERA) will be on the mound going up against Preston Johnson ( 3-2, 4.47 ERA).