Alabama Baseball Falters Late Against No. 6 Mississippi State, 4-2

A four-run seventh inning haunts the Crimson Tide as the Bulldogs take game one of the final regular-season series

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama baseball's aspirations of playing in an NCAA regional were weakened with a 4-2 loss to No. 6 Mississippi State at Sewell-Thomas Stadium on Thursday night. 

"Tough loss," Crimson Tide coach Brad Bohannon said postgame. "Disappointed for our kids. We don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves. We can't play a B-plus or A-minus game tomorrow. We have to play our A game."

Junior right hander Tyler Ras (6-3, 5.40 ERA) started on the mound for the Crimson Tide and looked brilliant through six innings until a five-pitch walk to Bulldogs second baseman Scotty Dubrule to open the seventh. 

On the ensuing at-bat, left fielder Kellum Clark doubled off the center field wall to tie it at one. Then, shortstop Lane Forsythe smoked a ground-ball to the left side of the infield and dug out a RBI single to give Mississippi State a lead it would never relinquish. 

The final straw on Ras' outing was a one-out RBI double to Bulldogs right fielder Tanner Allen, who led the SEC in batting average at .389 coming into Thursday.

Ras finished with 6 1/3 innings pitched, three strikeouts, seven hits, four earned runs and one walk. It was his second straight start of six innings pitched or more. He was saddled with his fourth loss of the season. 

"Tyler gave us an awesome start," Bohannon added. "Pitched deep in the game and gave us a real chance to win. In hindsight, I probably should've gone to the 'pen little bit earlier. His pitch count was in the 90s but he was just pitching so well. I kinda thought it was his game.

"He pitched great and deserved to get the win and I hate we couldn't do that for him."

Ras' counterpart, Mississippi State ace left hander Christian MacLeod (4-3, 3.20 ERA) was untouchable for most of the evening. MLB.com's 74th-best overall prospect for the 2021 draft tossed seven strong innings that included 10 strikeouts, two earned runs, five hits and only one walk.

Alabama left fielder Jackson Tate opened the scoring on the first pitch he saw in the fifth inning with an opposite field home run to the Crimson Tide faithful sitting in the right-field terrance. 

It was Tate's fourth home run of the year and second game in a row with one. He also added a single in the seventh.

"I'm really happy for [Jackson]," Bohannon said. "He's an older guy that's been in and out of the lineup and he's given us a nice spark recently. He's doing a great job and, hopefully, he'll continue to do that."

Shortstop Bryce Eblin, who entered the game in the top of the 7th to replace first baseman Davis Heller after he was forced to exit after a hamstring injury, added to Alabama's offense in the 7th with a RBI single to score Zane Denton from third. 

In both the seventh and eighth innings, Alabama brought the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs but was unable to capitalize. Infielder Jim Jarvis hit a deep fly ball to center field to end the seventh, while Praytor sent one to the center-field warning track to end the eighth with runners on the corners. 

As a whole, the Crimson Tide's offense only amassed six hits and left five runners on base.

Coming on in relief of Ras, Alabama righty Will Freeman tossed 2.2 shutout innings with four strikeouts and one free pass on 33 pitches. 

Mississippi State (38-13, 18-10 SEC) closer Landon Sims struck out the side in the ninth with fastballs that touched anywhere from 94 to 96 mph. He was credited with the save and lowered his ERA on the season to 0.50.

"You can't be chasing runs against a team like Mississippi State," Bohannon said. "[Sims] is arguably the best closer in the country." 

The Crimson Tide (29-20, 12-15 SEC) will have two more cracks at the Bulldogs, once more on Friday night (6 p.m, SEC Network+) and then on Saturday afternoon (1 p.m, SEC Network+), to try and bolster its NCAA tournament resume before the SEC tournament in Hoover next week. 

"It's no secret," Bohannon said. "These kids have social media. They know that every game we play is the biggest game of the year and we aren't shying away from that. The message I try to tell the kids is don't add to anything. We don't need to swing harder or pitch harder, just go out and play. 

"You get to the end of the year and the quality of baseball is really high. LSU is a tough place to win a series and I thought we outplayed them twice and we were only able to get one win... Mississippi State is very deserving of their top-five ranking and to beat them you have to be really good. We were only pretty good tonight and we need to be really good tomorrow."

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Tyler Martin
TYLER MARTIN

Tyler Martin is a staff writer with Bama Central and has been covering the Crimson Tide since August of 2019. He emphasizes in recruiting, football, and basketball, while covering all other Alabama athletics.