A Super Talk Mississippi Media Production.

So let's start our bi-week blitz where we're talking to as many coaches as we can get on the podcast today, and we'll start with the man.

He's been on the podcast before, and I always enjoy talking to him.

My friend Chris Lomonas, Mississippi State Baseball, the man who has, you know, I know this offseason has been long for you, but you've been able to get back on the diamond these past few weeks with some scrimmages. Just give me some high-level thoughts of what you've seen from your team thus far in those scrimmages. You know, it's been a little bit of a weird fall. We've got so many new guys, and then we had a handful of injuries. I don't think

they're season-long injuries, but we just, you know, we lost some guys this fall. But I was

pleased. I mean, we have a skill development phase and us playing the game better, and then there's

also this team phase of us learning how to play, you know, this game as a group and together

and working on our culture. So, you know, this game as a group and together and working on our culture.

So, you know, Monday was kind of our last day of teamwork, and now today we go into our, you know,

our individual work and trying to work, but we're really pleased as a staff.

You have a lot of new faces, and I feel like that bringing those guys in has sort of had people, they've lost sight of some of the guys you brought back originally on the team. A guy like Hunter Hines, right, he had such a massive freshman season, and you look at him and you think, gosh, that guy played so great as a true freshman, what's the next level for a guy like Hunter Hines? I mean, he's got a chance to be one of the better players in the country. You know, I mean, he's got to work and he's got to do it, but he, you know, he played about two weeks of our fall and had a hurt, you know, hurt his arm. But he had a couple homers, just some big hits. I mean, it's just a special player, and it's a tough player. He's a tough kid. He loves to play

the game. He's probably the epitome of your, you know, what you think of of a Mississippi

State baseball player. And then a guy like Kellam Clark comes back, you know, who had a

up and down, you would say season last year, but definitely you know that the potential is there

for him

to sort of join Heinz and be one of the top players in the country.

How is his fall gone?

Well, his Cape, he was an all-star in the Cape Cod League, and his last week of the summer

he broke his hand on an HPP, and he didn't get won about the entire fall. No, gosh. So he is, he's full go now. He's full go now, but he is, you know, I didn't have, really, I didn't have Kellam or Hunter much this fall. Hunter, Hunter had a broken arm, and Kellum had a broken hand. So I've had those two guys out, so we've had to play without him a little bit. So, but they're, um, Kellerman's swinging and playing full time right now. I had the cast taken off last week and feeling good. So he should be fine for the season and same with Hunter. Hunters are about a week or two, too. So they should be fine, but that's kind of been our dynamic this fall. We've, you know, we've had a couple players out. Coach, after last season, you've got to be pretty sick and tired of injuries

at this point. Yes. It's been testing, you know, we probably had at one point, I think we

had six or seven position players out this fall. Yeah. You know, so we were, we were

scrimmaging six on six and doing some things.

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