Everything Chris Lemonis said after the series win over Queens

Another series was won by Mississippi State as the Diamond Dawgs knocked off Queens 10-2.

The Bulldogs used 6.0 innings of one-hit, one-run baseball from Ben Davis. At the plate, Aaron Downs spearheaded a 14-hit day for the Bulldogs with three hits of his own and two home runs.

After the game, head coach Chris Lemonis spoke to the media about those two and their performance as well as sever

Question: How did you feel Ben Davis performed?

CL: “He’s pretty special and can do some really special things. It’s a turbo sinker so in relief he was striking out a lot of guys but today he had them banging the ball in the ground which is nice. When you get six innings and 57 pitches, that’s a pretty good day.

“He had a  blister in the second or third inning and he gutted through it and gave us a quality start.”

Q: You got Aaron Downs in the game and he had a great day. What’s your assessment of him?

CL: “He makes my job harder in some ways and easier than others. I gave Ben Davis the shirt but I felt like AD could have got it. Every game he’s not in the lineup I go up to him and tell him, ‘hey be ready’. It’s matchup and those corner guys are playing really well. He’s always like, ‘coach, I’m good. Let’s win.’

“When you have that mindset, that’s why the game rewards you. You stay in a good mindset, you keep yourself ready. He’s cheering on every guy on our team and he’s a really good player. We’re really lucky to have him.”

Q: Ben’s stats at ICC weren’t eye-popping. What’s changed with him that’s made him dynamic on this level?

CL: “He broke his hamate bone last year so he didn’t play a lot. That’s why he didn’t blow up in there. He had it earlier in the season and didn’t come back and play. When he finished his freshman year in the playoffs he was really good and that’s when we got him. In some ways, we were fortunate that he didn’t go through the draft process because of the injury, then his first outing here was 95-97 in the fall so we knew he was a special player.”

Q: Do you have an update on Dylan Cupp?

CL: “Dylan met with a doctor today and he’s going to be great. It may be a couple of days. They just had a collision out there so I don’t think it’s anything structurally. He’s still going to take a couple of days to get back in the mix. WE do have a couple of shortstops so it gives them an opportunity to play and go out there and have success.”

Q: Gatlin Sanders is another guy making your job difficult. How would you assess where he is.

CL: “He’s kind of the winning player. He’s that quiet player, but you look up and he plays defense, he steals bases, he gets two-out hits, he can bunt. It’s a real slow heartbeat. He’s my only engineer that we’ve got so he’s a real smart guy. You’ve got a lot of things with Gat. I’ve done him an injustice not playing him enough. He’s just going out there and playing like he does in practice which is huge.”

Q: You bat Dylan Cupp in the nine hole and Sawyer Reeves leads off. What goes into that decision for each player?

CL: “Sawyer has been a leadoff a lot in his career. Dylan probably started down there because of average and everything, but he grinds every at bat out. If you look at his stats, he probably has our highest pitches per at bat, walks, HBP, he can bunt. You’ve got to really work when Dylan is back there. I’ve been reluctant to move him because his on base percentage is so high and he’s really starting to swing it. I think we saw that on Wednesday night – he had some really big swings.”

Q: Really clean defense today behind Ben Davis.

CL: “Yeah, it was a good day. I told the guys we got really sloppy in the ninth but I thought when the game was on the line we made a lot of plays. Just routine plays, playing clean all day.”

Q: We haven’t seen Charlie Foster in a bit..

CL: “He got a little sore but he’s back pinning and doing everything so you’ll probably see him this week. Getting guys started this season, you get a little bit of that up and down. He’ll be back this week.”

Q: First impressions of Duke Stone?

CL: “I thought he was really good. He pitched with some composure. He’s one of our freshmen we’ve been really excited about. We haven’t had as many opportunities to get in there and we’re going to need guys like Duke to help us out. He’s so tall and lanky. It’s like seven feet of extension when he lets go so it feels like it’s really close to us.”