Welcome to the Boneyard with Steve Robertson. As always, I am your good friend and host, Steve Robertson, here on the Humday edition of the yard a little bit later today than usual, and there is a good reason for that.

I'll explain shortly as the Diamond Dogs get some bad news about a returning player that we had high expectations for him.

It's been a difficult couple days, I guess you could say, for Mississippi State, as they have

awaited the results of, you know, some tests involving Brandon Smith.

You know, it's one of those deals.

It's just kind of a weird deal.

The whole thing, you know, the whole thing on Saturday, you know, as good

as the day was, there were just a couple of things, you know, kind of rained on the parade.

You know, we had some guys not have a good day on the mound, but that's going to happen,

not to mention it's fall ball. But when you have a guy that is expected to be a major

contributor, like Brandon Smith,

and you see him simply walk off the mound, you know, Mike Neymouth and I were talking about that,

and the last time that we remember that happening at Mississippi State was when it happened with Spencer Price.

You know, Spencer had had a good season the time before,

and next thing you know, it's fall baseball scrimmage, and he walks off to mound and was lost

for the year. And to be fair, I don't know that he has regained, you know, his pre-surgical

procedure form. I think Spencer is really still kind of coming back from that. I know there were

times last year, you know, he had some moments, but he was a bit inconsistent. I just don't think he has regained that. You know, some other guys, you know, Ethan Small comes back, doesn't have the same velo he had prior to the Tommy John surgery, but was a better pitcher. You know, really kind of a, you know, change some things and became a better

pitcher.

He wasn't just a hard thrower.

So it's kind of a mixed bag.

People always say, well, these guys come back throwing harder.

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