Chris Lemonis on baserunning errors: 'It's focus level'

With a chance to sweep the Alabama Crimson Tide on Sunday, head coach Chris Lemonis and the Mississippi State Bulldogs fell short and dropped the final game of the series. That loss was, in no small part, because of baserunning mistakes by the Bulldogs.

These mistakes have been going on for a few weeks now. However, during the series against Alabama, those mistakes did add up. In particular, a pickoff in the second inning wiped out a leadoff single, though that wasn’t the only issue Mississippi State had on the bases.

After the game, Chris Lemonis expressed his frustrations with the focus that Mississippi State was showing on the bases.

“You get a pickoff on a steal attempt,” Chris Lemonis said. “That’s just aggressiveness, maybe not a great read. The one the other night with Amani [Larry] is a tough one and he flips it to third, which most guys don’t flip to third. Today we had a tough one and we’ve had some tough ones the last couple of weeks. It’s focus level. Just being focused and understanding what’s going on. We’ve got to be better.”

In the end, Mississippi State lost the game on Sunday by a score of 10-5. It was the first and only game that Mississippi State dropped in the series.

In the games before that, Mississippi State won despite making baserunning errors. That included, among other issues, Amani Larry getting caught stealing on Saturday.

Now, the Bulldogs are turning their attention to the Arkansas Razorbacks. It’s a series that’s going to require all of the team’s focus, and giving up outs on the basepaths could be devastating, especially given how well the Razorbacks pitch.

“They can really pitch. They arguably have maybe the best pitcher in the country in Hagan Smith and all three of their starters are really good and they pitch good in the backend. I’m sure they’re really comfortable pitching at home. It’s a veteran offensive group that have won a lot of games and know how to play winning baseball,” Lemonis said.

“I don’t think they’re putting up two touchdowns every game, but they can move the ball, they have some guys that can hit it out of the park, they play really good defense. They just play winning baseball.”

Mississippi State is going to travel to Fayetteville next weekend for the series with Arkansas. That will start on Friday night and through Sunday afternoon the two teams will play three games.