STARKVILLE — The Mississippi State baseball team will officially be without two of its best players for significant periods of time.
Head coach Chris Lemonis announced to media Thursday that sophomore right-hander JT Ginn underwent elbow surgery and will not return this season. Junior outfielder Tanner Allen had surgery for a broken bone in his hand, Lemonis announced, and there is no timetable for his return.
“Very crushing, in some ways, as their coach — not for our team as much as for these guys who’ve worked really hard and put so much time and effort into it,” Lemonis said.
Ginn felt soreness in his pitching arm before a bullpen session Feb. 18 and hasn’t pitched since the Bulldogs’ season opener Feb. 14. After meeting with doctors and seeking second opinions, Ginn had surgery on his elbow Wednesday. Lemonis did not specify the nature of the surgery, but D1baseball.com’s Kendall Rogers reported that Ginn underwent Tommy John surgery for a torn ulnar collateral ligament.
Mississippi State had already been without Ginn for the past two weekend series against Oregon State and Long Beach State but now must find a permanent replacement for last season’s National Freshman of the Year.
Allen, who had recently returned from a knee injury he suffered in the season opener, underwent surgery Tuesday after he broke a bone in his glove hand in a fall suffered Sunday during the Bulldogs’ series against Long Beach State.
Lemonis jogged out to right field to check on Allen and asked the junior to shake his hand as hard as he could. Allen did.
“He’s one of the toughest kids you’ll coach,” Lemonis said.
But Allen started feeling the effects a couple innings later, and now Mississippi State isn’t sure how long it will be without him — hand injuries can be “tricky” for hitters, Lemonis said.
Lemonis said the Bulldogs’ right fielder will be determined by pitching matchups, and he’s even run out a few infielders for practice at the position. After Allen hit .349 with 23 doubles and seven home runs last season, Lemonis knows replacing that production won’t be easy.
“Hopefully we get Tanner back in a couple weeks there, but we just don’t know anything at this point right now,” Lemonis said. “We’re just playing it by ear.”
Though the two injuries are critical blows to Mississippi State, Lemonis is confident his team still has the depth to weather the storm.
“This group has been through a lot, and we have a lot of good players,” he said. “You hate to see somebody have to go through some injury stuff. I think that’s the biggest piece. They’re still confident they can go out there and play good baseball, but you just hate it for your teammate.”
Lemonis also said Thursday that freshman left-hander Davis Rokose and senior lefty Jack Eagan are currently unavailable as they deal with minor injuries.
Here are two other storylines to follow before the Bulldogs begin this weekend’s series with Quinnipiac at 4 p.m. Friday at Dudy Noble Field.
Lemonis shuffles weekend rotation
Without Ginn since the Bulldogs’ opening series against Wright State, Lemonis turned to a weekend rotation of graduate student Carlisle Koestler, redshirt freshman Christian MacLeod and sophomore Eric Cerantola for the following two series.
But the Bulldogs will change up that plan this weekend.
Thursday, Lemonis laid out his plan for this weekend as Mississippi State faces Quinnipiac: MacLeod on Friday, freshman Will Bednar on Saturday and Cerantola on Sunday.
“We just feel like we’ve gotta get Christian to the front side,” Lemonis said.
MacLeod has been the Bulldogs’ best starter in his three outings so far this season, allowing no more than two runs in each five-inning appearance. The left-hander owns a 1.20 ERA and has struck out 23 hitters in 15 innings.
And it was for want of more strikeout potential that Lemonis decided to insert Bednar into the rotation. Dealing with an injury out of high school, Bednar lagged behind into the fall and had to catch up during practices early in the spring. The right-hander built up his pitch count to 65 in his third relief appearance — a four-inning outing after a pair of three-inning stints — and was judged ready for a starting role.
“He has power stuff,” Lemonis said. “As we get into SEC play, you feel like you need some strikeout stuff.”
Lemonis noted that Koestler, dropped from the rotation, will still be a “big piece” of the Bulldogs’ pitching plans, able to earn midweek starts and see time out of the bullpen on the weekend. The righty currently owns a 5.56 ERA in 11⅓ innings on the season.
Missed midweeks will be hard to make up
Construction at Lemonis’ house and a constant deluge of rain have left both his backyard and Dudy Noble field as a “flood zone” of late.
“It’s awful,” he said. “I feel like I need an ark down here.”
The weather has washed away midweek contests with Samford on Feb. 18 and with Southern Miss on Wednesday, leaving the Bulldogs with longer gaps in between their scheduled contests.
“That’s been pretty tough to deal with the last couple weeks,” Lemonis said. “But everybody’s dealing with it, so we’ve gotta jump out there and be ready to play and get playing good baseball.”
Mississippi State and Samford have been involved in discussions for a make-up game, though Lemonis noted that doing so will be more difficult with the oncoming start of conference play.
Making up the game with Southern Miss, scheduled to be played at Trustmark Park in Pearl, will be even harder. Between the schedules of the Bulldogs, the Golden Eagles and the Pearl-based Mississippi Braves — the Atlanta Braves’ Double-A affiliate — it remains to be seen whether the contest will be played this season.
As of Thursday afternoon, though, Mississippi State and Quinnipiac’s weekend series at Dudy Noble Field is still on. Start times of 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday are set to follow Friday’s 4 p.m. first pitch as the Bulldogs look to rebound from a series loss in Long Beach.
The Bobcats are 1-8 but have yet to play at home, getting swept at Texas-San Antonio and James Madison while winning one of three games against Virginia Military Institute.
Still, Lemonis sees a run-happy team — several Bobcats stole at least 15 bases last season — with key experience. Quinnipiac reached an NCAA regional final against East Carolina last season, and though the Bobcats were eliminated with a pair of losses, they could still be dangerous.
“They’ve got some guys in there who’ve played some big-time baseball and played in a big atmosphere,” Lemonis said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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