What to know as Mississippi State faces LSU

Let the marathon begin.

No. 3 Mississippi State opens up SEC play Friday night down in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, against No. 19 LSU. One of the league's best baseball rivalries gets renewed.

So what do you need to know as State and LSU get set to face off? Let's take a look.

Game times

Friday, March 19 - 6 p.m. central
Saturday, March 20 - 6:30 p.m. central
Sunday, March 21 - 2 p.m. central

Where to watch/listen

You'll have several ways to keep up with all the action this weekend. First off, Friday's game is on regular television, aired by SEC Network. That is the only game of the series on actual TV. However you can stream every game of the series from online to your device of choice courtesy of SEC Network+.

On the radio, you can listen to the Friday and Sunday games courtesy of the MSU Baseball Radio Network. You can find your affiliate by CLICKING HERE. You should note that Saturday's game is a Starkville-area-only radio broadcast as MSU men's basketball's 4 p.m. central NIT game against Saint Louis will take radio network priority.

No matter where you are, you can access audio of all the games via TuneIn.com or the TuneIn app. Fans can simply search "Mississippi State" on the TuneIn app. TuneIn is available for download on iOS and Android, plus more than 200 connected devices. Game audio can also be heard via Mississippi State's website HERE.

Who's scheduled to start on the mound?

Friday: MSU LHP Christian Macleod (1-1, 1.84 ERA) vs. LSU RHP Jaden Hill (2-1, 4.21 ERA)

Saturday: MSU RHP Will Bednar (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. LSU RHP Landon Marceaux (2-0, 0.00 ERA)

Sunday: MSU RHP Eric Cerantola (0-1, 6.97 ERA) vs. LSU RHP A.J. Labas (0-0, 3.10 ERA)

Up to this point

No. 3 Mississippi State enters this weekend's series at 14-3 overall, having won seven games in a row and 11 of its last 12. The Bulldogs have lived up to their preseason hype by winning two out of three games in each of the first three weekends of the season, including in the season-opening State Farm College Showdown against all-nationally-ranked competition. State got its first weekend sweep of the year last weekend, taking three from Eastern Michigan. MSU has backed all that up by going a perfect 5-0 in midweek games.

LSU opens play tonight with a 15-3 record. The Tigers' lone losses this year were a one-run defeat to Air Force and a pair of somewhat-head-scratching losses to Oral Roberts. LSU lost two out of three in a weekend series to that currently 6-10 Oral Roberts team, losing one of those games 22-7. In its most recent weekend series, LSU swept UTSA, though it took extra-inning nail biters for the Tigers to win the last two of the three games.

On the mound

While LSU's expected Saturday starter, Landon Marceaux, has been almost untouchable – not giving up a single earned run all year over 23 innings – the Tiger pitching staff as a whole hasn't been great. When you take Marceaux's innings out of the equation, LSU's team ERA is 4.50. As it stands though, including Marceaux, the Tigers have a 3.85 ERA as a squad. Opponents are hitting .232 off of LSU pitching.

Mississippi State's pitching staff enters this weekend having allowed just four total runs over the last seven games. The Bulldogs boast a team ERA of 2.24 and opposing batters are hitting only .176 against MSU arms.

State boasts a stable of pitchers that miss bats altogether. The Bulldogs have struck out a whopping 228 batters over 153 innings. That's an incredible rate of 1.5 strikeouts per inning pitched.

At the plate

LSU has had many prolific offenses in its history and this year's team is living up to the bar set by many Tiger predecessors. LSU hits .289 as a team and four lineup regulars are batting .299 or higher. The Tigers are slugging .513 and have 35 home runs as a team – the most in all of college baseball and more than twice as many as MSU's 16.

On a team full of threats, Dylan Crews has maybe been the biggest. He's hitting at a .406 clip entering the weekend with six homers. Cade Doughty is right there with Crews though, sporting a team-leading eight long balls along with a .340 batting average.

Meanwhile Tre' Morgan is hitting .338, Gavin Dugas is at .324 and Zach Arnold sits at .299.

Mississippi State has had moments of offensive inconsistency this year, but the Bulldogs have certainly improved their numbers of late. MSU is now hitting .279 as a team.

Tanner Allen leads MSU with his .308 batting average, just barely ahead of Luke Hancock, who – when rounded – is also hitting .308. Hancock has provided the most pop of the two big bats though. Hancock has a team-best five homers and he's tied for the team lead with 18 RBI.

Of MSU's seven lineup regulars this season (Scotty Dubrule, Rowdey Jordan, Allen, Kamren James, Hancock, Josh Hatcher and Logan Tanner) all are hitting .259 or better now with the exception of Jordan. Even he seems to be improving from his slump of earlier in the year as Jordan is up to a .239 average to go along with a pair of homers and 12 runs driven in.

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