- Mississippi State baseball lost two of three games to No. 11 Auburn, jeopardizing the Bulldogs' NCAA Tournament hopes.
- Starting pitcher Karson Ligon's inconsistency continues to be a problem.
Mississippi State baseball was a win from what would have been one of its most impressive series of the season, but couldn’t get it done.
The Bulldogs (25-19, 7-14 SEC) lost two of three games at No. 11 Auburn (30-14, 11-10) over the weekend. They lost 6-5 on April 25, won 12-7 and lost 14-8 in the final game.
Here’s what we learned from the series.
Time is running out on Mississippi State baseball to make push for NCAA Tournament
The Bulldogs had a horrid 1-9 start to SEC play, began to play better with series wins against Alabama and South Carolina, but have stumbled again. The Auburn series is their second straight loss, and they are 2-5 in their past seven games. They are in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for a third time in the past four seasons since winning the 2021 national championship.
Mississippi State’s No. 46 RPI is not good enough, and it squandered too many RPI-boosting wins early in the season. Only two midweek games remain — against Memphis and North Alabama — so winning SEC games is essentially the only path into the NCAA Tournament.
Sweeping Missouri in the final series of the season is a must. But it probably won’t matter much unless MSU wins the Kentucky and Ole Miss series. Both of those are at home, where Mississippi State is 3-6 in conference play.
Karson Ligon’s volatility is too difficult to trust
Karson Ligon can be really good at times as Mississippi State’s Sunday starting pitcher. He also can be really bad. He was extremely bad on April 27.
Ligon was shelled for eight runs, seven unearned, in 1⅓ innings before getting pulled. It’s his fourth start in SEC play in which he has allowed at least five earned runs, and the second time this season he hasn’t made it out of the second inning. His ERA is now 9.12 against SEC opponents.
“He could have made better pitches in there, but we don't defend early, either,” coach Chris Lemonis said in his postgame radio interview. “That's a bad combination. We had two or three plays in the first couple innings that we could really make to help out. We don't make them, and then we don't make some pitches.”
Ligon's two best conference performances came against South Carolina and Alabama, where in 10 games combined he did not concede an earned run.
Evan Siary is improving as Mississippi State starting pitcher
Siary, the junior from Columbus, made his fifth consecutive start on April 26, his best one yet. He pitched a career-high six innings, allowing three runs on four hits and one walk for his first win of the season, leaving the game with Mississippi State ahead 10-3.
“Very few pitches he gave in,” Lemonis said. “Even the homer they hit was a slider that kind of stayed over the plate, but he never let them sit on the pitch or sit on the fastball too much.”
Siary has been trending this way for three weeks. His previous two starts were the same: four innings, two earned runs allowed. Nothing spectacular, but a valuable, winning effort.
It wasn’t until Siary left the game when Mississippi State ran into trouble. Reliever Stone Simmons allowed two runs in each of the seventh and eighth innings. Auburn had the tying run at the plate in the eighth inning, but Nate Williams induced an inning-ending double play.
Sam Sklaris the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.
