From bananas to hero: MSU’s Westburg is clutch
OMAHA, Neb. — If your first impression of Mississippi State freshman Jordan Westburg was watching his banana antics in the Tallahassee Regional, you might assume he’s the class clown.
Not so, said Mississippi State coach Gary Henderson.
“He’s an intense kid,” Henderson said. “Super intense. He’s not a goof- ball.”
Really? The same Westburg we have seen using a banana as a phone, then as a radar gun, then yelling at it in the dugout, is super intense?
Apparently so, because what he’s done for Mississippi State in the last seven weeks is no joke.
The right-handed hitter from New Braunfels, Texas, has played better in the second half of the season, taking ownership of his role on the team and contributing significantly from the nine-hole. And that was before he came through with that massive seven-RBI game in State’s 12-2 win over North Carolina Tuesday at TD Ameritrade Park.
“It feels great,” Westburg said. “I think, you know, if you’re going to do all the shenanigans in the dugout, (you) might have to step it up on the field and back that up.”
Like the rest of this red-hot Mississippi State team, Westburg’s journey through this 2018 season has been upand-down, with a huge upward trend here at the end. He had big expectations on his shoulders coming out of high school as an honorable mention for the 2017 Rawlings/Perfect Game All-American Team, ranked as the No. 262 best high school player in the country.
Westburg earned a lot of playing time early but struggled with contact through his first 25 games. He was hitting .265 at the end of March, but that number plummeted to .216 when he went 7 for 40 at the plate (a .175 average) in the month of April.
He sat out five games — a whole weekend series at Alabama, a midweek tilt against Troy and the first of a threegame stretch against Kentucky — to start the last month of the regular season. When he made his return to the lineup, the contrast in his plate approach was stark. He was more patient with a more compact swing, and it showed. Westburg went a combined 6for-13 in his first four games back, raised his average from .216 to .253 and drove in four runs.
He missed two more weeks after that with a hamstring injury, but he’s continued to show improvement since returning to start the month of June. Now, he’s raised his average all the way up to .268, and some of those hits are coming at opportune times. He’s driven in as many runs in his last 12 games (15) as he did in his first 25.
After going 0-for-3 against Washington ace Joe DeMers in the opening game of this College World Series, Westburg went 3-for-4 Tuesday and cleared the bases twice.