Postgame Reactions: Mississippi State turns attention to NCAA postseason

Yeah, it was, and I'll tell you, I've had to go, uh, heavy to my Strange Brew pods here today, Bart.

I thought the game was kind of boring at times.

It was.

Uh, maybe that's just what happens to you when you keep hitting into double plays.

But it just...

I, I don't know.

It, it, it felt familiar in the sense that Duke Stone got into the fourth and ran into trouble.

You saw him flirting with it, and, and, and then it comes, and you start to now think about, what does this team have to do better if it's gonna advance in a regional? Well, some of it's, you know, can't hit into double plays, but man, I, I just am growing increasingly concerned about where we are with our starting pitching.

Well, that's what I was gonna say.

I, you know, other than in the last month, other than Tomas Vlachos, where do you feel comfortable with your starting pitching right now? And you can't, I, I, I can't say anybody right now because you look over the last month and, you know, Duke's having his difficulties in the fourth inning or fifth inning, uh, if he gets to that point.

Today, and it, it was very similar, um, you go back to that home run that Hudson hit, and I thought there in that fourth inning, th- that's when Duke kind of lost the feel of his slider.

And what I mean by just lost the feel, he w- he was pulling through it big, and we had some big misses there.

And I thought Hudson, the pitch before took the slider down and in at about a foot and a half out of the zone, and it was almost like, all right, this guy's having difficulties with the slider and I'm just gonna sit on fastball.

And it seemed like after that Georgia sat on fastball, and that's what Hudson did.

He just sat on that fastball, and it came right across the heart of the plate.

And so, you know, a lot of people say they were fo-

Hey, and I'll give you credit.

You sent me a message before it happened, and you said, "Duke has lost the feel and you better make a change here." And-

Well, hey, he had lost that feel for that secondary pitch, and a lot of people say, "Man, he's, it's the fastball that they're hitting." Well, because, hey, let me tell you, at this level, if you're sitting up there and the guy's got one pitch, we saw it with Cal Steven against LSU a couple years ago, where he didn't have the slider at all, and they just teed off on it.

Duke was sitting out there with one pitch, and that was it.

And you cannot face this team with one pitch.