Baseball: Larry homers twice, Mississippi State cruises past Missouri

STARKVILLE — Amani Larry’s younger brother was the “Lil’ Dude of the Game” at Dudy Noble Field on Friday, having come all the way from Bossier City, Louisiana to watch the senior second baseman play his final regular-season home games for Mississippi State.

In-stadium host Grace Harvey asked Larry’s brother who his favorite Bulldogs player is, and he gave the obvious answer. Perhaps inspired by the love from his family, Larry homered twice after the brief interview as part of a three-hit, four-RBI day to lead MSU to an 8-2 victory over Missouri.

“It was pretty awesome,” Larry said. “It’s awesome when you realize I’m playing in The Dude. Not everybody gets to do that. A lot of (youth) teams take field trips to The Dude. I’m just blessed to be here.”

With center fielder Connor Hujsak still out with a back injury, freshman Ethan Pulliam has shifted from second base to the outfield for the last two games, giving Larry, who had started the previous 16 games as the designated hitter, the opportunity to start in the field again at his natural position. Since returning to the defensive lineup, Larry is 4-for-7 at the plate with three home runs, five runs batted in and five runs scored.

“That may be part of the reason. I’m sure he would tell me that, (as) the guy who makes out the lineup card,” Bulldogs head coach Chris Lemonis said. “There’s nobody who works as hard as Amani in our program. He’s a wonderful kid and he’s a really good baseball player. This game is tough. It’s fun to see him reap some of those rewards.”

Larry provided more than enough run support for sophomore Jurrangelo Cijntje, who held the Tigers to just three hits — two of them solo homers — over seven strong innings, striking out nine and issuing just one walk.

Cijntje struck out five batters in a row at one point, and while his fastball was sharp, sitting in the range of 95-96 miles per hour for most of the game, his secondary pitches were the key to his outing. A year after finishing the season with an 8.10 ERA in 50 innings, Cijntje improved to 8-1 with a 3.48 ERA over 77 2/3 innings, striking out 3.5 batters for every walk and holding opponents to a .204 average.

“I almost wonder, was he throwing a cutter? It was so hard early. It was 90-91 (mph) a lot,” Lemonis said. “A couple weeks ago, he was using the curveball a lot. But it’s just what he feels some days in the bullpen. The slider was really good today, and his changeup. When he has his changeup, it’s really tough to hit him.”

Hunter Hines opened the scoring with a leadoff home run in the second inning, a blast that left the bat at 114 miles per hour and landed 416 feet away from home plate. It was Hines’ 15th long ball of the year, 12 of which have come in Southeastern Conference play.

Trevor Austin evened the score with a solo shot in the fourth after Cijntje had retired the first 10 batters of the game, but MSU (36-18, 17-12 SEC) retook the lead, for good this time, in the bottom of the inning. Hines walked and Larry singled with one out, and Logan Kohler beat the shift for an opposite-field single to bring in Hines. Joe Powell’s sacrifice fly to left then brought home Larry.

The Bulldogs broke the game open an inning later, taking advantage of two errors on one play by Missouri’s second baseman that put runners at the corners with nobody out. Dakota Jordan’s second double of the game drove in Bryce Chance, and two batters later, Larry launched a three-run shot into the lounge in left to put MSU on top 7-1.

Cijntje made one more mistake when Matt Garcia tagged him for a leadoff homer in the seventh, but he retired the next three men he faced to end his day after 95 pitches.

“Sometimes it’s just late in the game, you’ll hang a breaking ball or something,” Cijntje said. “You just have to keep your composure and stay locked in and don’t let that determine your outing.”

Larry led off the eighth with his second home run, completing his second multi-homer game in a Bulldogs uniform. He hit two on May 18 of last year, including a walk-off blast in the ninth, in a 10-8 win over Texas A&M.

MSU has won every home series in conference play and will go for its second SEC sweep of the year Saturday. The Bulldogs enter the day tied with Georgia for fifth place in the conference standings, though they do own the tiebreaker thanks to a series win back in early April.

“We’re still playing for seeding, for hosting, for all those type of things,” Lemonis said. “This league, it’s just so hard. That’s why you see a lot of teams get two and give back one. They’re locked in. They know how big (Saturday’s) game is and they’ll be ready to go.”

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