Perfect Game Super Regional previews

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Perfect Game previewed all eight super regionals. Here's what they had to say about MSU @ VU:

Nashville Super Regional | Mississippi State at Vanderbilt

Mississippi State had one of the more remarkable runs through Regional play, and after they got destroyed by Oklahoma on Friday and entered the bottom of the ninth inning after a two-and-a-half hour rain delay against Florida State on Saturday, down 2-0, they suddenly decided to come to life.

Elijah MacNamee was the star of it all, hitting a three-run walk-off bomb against FSU that kept MSU’s season alive. They ended up eliminating all three of the other participants at the Tallahassee Regional, starting with the host Seminoles before taking care of Samford and getting revenge on Oklahoma, twice.

While the offense provided the fireworks the pitching staff more than held their own, at least after the first game of the series that saw lefthanded ace Konnor Pilkington get shelled. Ethan Small, Jacob Billingsley, Cole Gordon and J.P. France all contributed meaningful innings, while Riley Self made three scoreless relief appearances, picking up a win and a save along the way.

Vanderbilt’s three games lacked the drama that Mississippi State’s did, largely because the Commodores were so good, making quick work of both St. John’s on Friday and Clemson on both Saturday and Sunday.

The lineup can score runs in bunches, with four dynamic freshmen sandwich in between experienced run producers Ethan Paul, Stephen Scott and Connor Kaiser. Kaiser enjoyed the game of his career on Sunday with a 5-for-7, 10 RBI performance that included three home runs.

While scoring runs hasn’t been a problem preventing them has with plenty of interesting arms that possess swing-and-miss stuff yet lingering issues with consistency.

Sophomore righthander Drake Fellows has been the most consistent of their hurlers while serving as the team’s staff ace, tossing seven scoreless frames on Friday. How Vanderbilt uses Patrick Raby will be interesting to follow as there have been four instances this year in which they have used him as a long man out of the ‘pen, with one of those times coming last Saturday against Clemson.

Speaking of the bullpen, the team’s hardest throwers, Reid Schaller and Chandler Day, have emerged nicely as the team’s set-up man and closer, as Day picked up a save in each of Vanderbilt’s first two wins last weekend.

You can read the other previews here:

2018 Super Regional Preview