The breakout that never came for State baseball

I

t's hard to find a more stark difference between the joy and jubilation from around this time a year ago and the frustration and dejection that Mississippi State baseball experienced during the just recent season.

The most memorable run in the school's proud baseball history concluded last June with a dog pile in Omaha and the first team national championship in MSU his- tory. For months, the celebration ran strong. It started in the streets outside of TD Ameritrade, returned back to Starkville for an epic parade and celebration inside Dudy Noble and the high fives, merchandise sells and reminiscing carried on well into the 2022 baseball season.

It wasn't long until that honeymoon concluded, however.

The Bulldogs came into the year having returned much of the production from the 2021 national title team and some promise from players that were going to take the next step, but the potential of this team was never met at any point this year and only had MSU fans and the team alike waiting for that moment to break out.

So now the Bulldogs sit at home with a losing record overall, nine Southeastern Conference wins and a postseason absence all together. It's the first time since 2015 that any of that has happened and breaks up a string of five-straight postseasons with a trip to at least a super regional and three-straight trips to the College World Series.

There are plenty of things to bring into focus what made this season such a struggle. You can start that Friday night in New Orleans when Landon Sims went from building one of the most dominant outings on the mound in recent memory to walking off with a tingle from his elbow down to his right hand that led to the unfortunate end to his MSU career.

Shortly after, one of the team's best relievers Stone Simmons came out early in that same series only to suffer the same fate. Another solid relief pitcher in Brooks Auger followed with an elbow injury a month later and Parker Stinnett suffered an injury that ended his season.

After losing key contributors on the mound like Will Bednar, Christian Macleod and Houston Harding from the year before, State never found the production in the staff consistently – not in the bullpen or in the starting rotation.

The offense is perhaps the most disappointing. The Bulldogs were returning veteran pieces like Kam James, Logan Tanner, Luke Hancock, Brad Cumbest and other starters like Lane Forsythe and Kellum Clark. Adding in one of the top transfers in the portal in RJ Yeager and it looked like a lineup that could be special.

While most of those players improved their numbers across the board and the team hit 95 home runs to challenge the alltime school record, it was the