STARKVILLE — The start of Justin Parker as interim Mississippi State baseball coach couldn’t have gone much better.

The Bulldogs (29-19, 10-14 SEC) are 4-0 since firing coach Chris Lemonis on April 28. They swept Kentucky (25-20, 10-14) at Dudy Noble Field, MSU’s first SEC series sweep of the season. 

MSU run-ruled the Wildcats 14-4 in Game 1 and won with a Joe Powell walk-off single in Game 2 after the May 2 game was postponed. It won again on May 4, 6-1, to clinch the sweep. 

“We’ve been through a lot,” Parker said. “It’s a tough and resilient group. They’re proving it.”

Here’s what we learned from the series. 

Mississippi State baseball is playing with new energy under Justin Parker

Parker said he didn’t notice a difference in Mississippi State’s demeanor in the four games following Lemonis’ firing, but it’s hard to deny something has changed. 

The energy, the motivation, the confidence, the urgency all felt elevated in the four games at Dudy Noble Field. The in-game coaching decisions paid off. So many of them this season under Lemonis backfired. 

“It’s not a completely different club, and there’s not a whole lot of different moves being made,” Parker said. “We’re fairly consistent as a staff. I think it was just guys believing in themselves and getting a little bit of wake-up call and responding to it.”

It’s not uncommon in sports for a team to play with some extra juice shortly after a coach is fired. Will it sustain? That’s the big question.

But for now, Mississippi State deserves credit for not folding. The Bulldogs have said all along that the NCAA tournament is still the goal. They did a lot to keep those hopes alive by sweeping Kentucky. 

Mississippi State’s bullpen responded against Kentucky

MSU’s bullpen was a strength of the team early in the season but ran into trouble the last two series. 

Against Kentucky, the Mississippi State bullpen didn’t allow a run in 15 innings.

“You don’t just overnight lose your bullpen,” said Parker, who’s also the MSU pitching coach. “There’s good arms in there, there’s good competitors and there’s really good stuff. It was just a matter of going back out there and believing in it and competing.”

Two relievers, Ben Davis and Luke Dotson, pitched twice. Dotson earned the win in Game 2 and Davis got the win in Game 3 after three scoreless innings. The Bulldogs got two important long relief outings in Game 2 from Ryan McPherson and Nate Williams, combining for 6⅓ innings with one hit, three walks and no runs. 

“We got to get ahead for strike one,” Dotson said. “And then, we just can’t waste any pitches.”

Bryce Chance is playing a great center field

Center fielder Bryce Chance got two ovations from the Mississippi State crowd during the series.

The first one came after a sliding catch in left-center field in the fifth inning of Game 1. The game was close at the time, with MSU leading 5-4 and two runners on base. The difficult catch likely prevented two runs from scoring, and Chance received a standing ovation while running back to the dugout. 

One inning later, Mississippi State scored eight runs for the comfortable lead on Kentucky. 

In Game 3, Chance made a leaping catch at the wall in the first inning to perhaps save a home run or at least prevent the runner at third base from scoring. The out ended the inning, and Chance once again got an ovation.

Chance scored the winning run in Game 2 and hasn’t committed an error in 45 starts this season. 

Joe Powell is turning into a clutch hitter

Powell started all three games of the series at catcher and played well in the field and at the plate. 

In Game 1, he batted 3-for-3 with a home run, a walk, three RBIs and three runs. He had only one hit in Game 2, but it was the big one, a walk-off single in the 11th inning. Powell provided another clutch hit on May 4, punching a two-run single in the sixth inning for a 4-1 lead. 

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In the field, Powell threw out a runner attempting to steal a base in Game 3 and limited Kentucky, which leads the SEC in stolen bases, to just two in the series.

Sam Sklar is the Mississippi State beat reporter for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at ssklar@gannett.com and follow him on X @sklarsam_.