HOOVER, Ala. — Mississippi State University pitching coach Butch Thompson couldn’t help but worry about what he was asking his catcher to do.
The night before the Southeastern Conference baseball tournament final Sunday, Thompson was back in the team hotel watching television with Slauter constantly asking him if he was sure he could catch a sixth consecutive day in Hoover, Ala.
“I thought that was the toughest thing for me throughout the entire tournament because I care about this young man,” Thompson said. “I don’t think our pitching staff is the same without Mitch Slauter.”
In the middle of the commercial breaks of A&E’s new program “Duck Dynasty,” Thompson kept trying to get his junior catcher to take a day off knowing the Bulldogs (39-22) would be going through an NCAA postseason run whenever they left Regions Park.
“He just kept looking at me saying ‘Coach you’re killing me because if you take me out today and we win and bring me back Sunday then the damage is done and my body is going to feel the same’,” Thompson said. “I’ve seen some great ballplayers and it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Thompson’s statement about the pitching staff dominance involving Slauter is evident
In the fact Slauter caught every inning of every game of MSU’s 2012 SEC baseball tournament championship.
“Everyone would think I’d be tired but it was the last thing on my mind,” Slauter said. “Here’s the deal – if you’re having fun and excited about something then your adrenaline is pumping and being tired is not an issue.”
In six games, he caught 55 innings and received 832 pitches. Slauter has not been out of the lineup since the 11th and 12th innings against Vanderbilt back on April 7. Since then, he has played in 29 consecutive games and been behind the plate for 281 consecutive innings.
“I think you give me the option of taking me out of an NCAA Regional or Mitch Slauter and my choice would be to have Mitch Slauter there,” Thompson said. “I don’t know if there’s any better compliment that you can pay to a player.”
Thompson’s boss, MSU coach John Cohen, echoed that opinion of Slauter in a big way.
“We can’t win the SEC tournament without Mitch Slauter and I don’t care if he doesn’t get one single hit the entire week,” Cohen said. “That’s how important he is for us.”
Thompson said after the 3-0 championship game over Vanderbilt University, Slauter and the MSU pitchers called every pitch themselves but for two throughout the entire tournament.
“I almost wish that everyone could make a mound visit and listen to the way he breaks down the guys walking to the plate,” Cohen said. “It’s to the point now that when I make a mound visit, I say ‘Okay Mitch, tell me what you got’ and he just breaks it down perfectly.”
MSU used 11 pitchers in the six-game tournament to allow a total of 12 runs. Four different Bulldogs hurlers, all of which Slauter is responsible for having a gameplan for, make multiple appearances but not allow a single run.
“I call almost all the pitchers and so what those guys do a great job of is trusting the plan,” Slauter said. “They trust me and Coach Thompson so the preparation is there for them to allow them to be aggressive.”
The trust of which Slauter talks about happened in a matter of days out of necessity when the Kansas native arrived on the Starkville campus in August and wasn’t an easy process. Pitchers like senior Caleb Reed, juniors Chris Stratton and Kendall Graveman had all trusted graduating senior Wes Thigpen with their game on the mound. A new element was being brought into their world and change is not something athletes of routine will typically embrace right away.
“I thought Thiggy would be the best catcher I’d ever have and looked at Mitch like ‘Who are you?’ at first,” Reed said. “You begin to understand that catching is not something he just does – it’s his craft. The difference is he works at this craft and it’s not something he just fell into with talent.”
Slauter is the epitome of what it takes mentally and emotionally to play for Cohen and the MSU staff as he is a self-described non-stop student of the game that hopes to become a coach at some level after he tries professional baseball.
“What he has is an imagination and a brilliant baseball mind,” Cohen said. “Then you couple that with his ability to will somebody or to coach them into any kind of pitch – it is special. It is so hard to take a guy out of a game that is like the extension of your coaching staff.”
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