Eagles thumped in weekend play against Cal State Fullerton

The Southern Miss baseball team's high hopes heading into the past weekend's series with Cal State Fullerton were dashed early and often at the hands of the Titans, but according to Southern Miss coach Corky Palmer, the team can use the experience to get better.

"Hopefully we will," Palmer said. "[Fullerton] is a very good team, but we didn't play very well. It wasn't just the fielding mistakes, we didn't get the starting pitching we needed to stay in those games."

The Eagles fell out of the major college baseball polls after the weekend's 26-run flattening, and are currently No 57 in the Warren Nolan Power Index, a poll which they were number one in just over a week ago.

Cal State Fullerton moved to No. 2 in that poll, and stayed steady at No. 7 in both the College Baseball Writers' Poll and the Coaches' Poll.

Palmer credited Fullerton's success to its high number of returning players at key positions.

"They were an older team and they had six starters back; that had a lot to do with [what happened]," Palmer said. "We have a lot of new players in the program and when you play some younger guys, that is going to happen. I think it showed the younger guys what big-time college baseball is all about."

Palmer said he plans to shuffle the pitching rotation around next week in an attempt to get more consistency from his starters, and sophomore J.R. Ballinger and junior Kyle Lindsey will be the new Friday and Saturday night starters, respectively.

Previous Friday night starter Todd McInnis and Saturday starter Cody Schlagel both entered the weekend sporting 2-0 records, but were roughed up for seven earned runs in 2.1 innings.

Lindsey, a junior college transfer from Pearl River Community College, worked four innings in Saturday's game against Fullerton, and allowed one earned run on five hits while tallying three strikeouts.

Ballinger, a sophomore, didn't pitch over the weekend but sports a 1-0 record, and a 2.19 earned run average in 12.1 innings.

"It doesn't matter who you are playing, whether it be Fullerton, East Carolina or Rice, you have to have solid starting pitching or you are going to get beat," Palmer said.

McInnis will get a shot at redemption today, when he takes the mound for the Eagles against UNO in New Orleans at 6:30 p.m.

Palmer called Monday's practice one of the season's best, and said he was glad to see his seniors starting to take more control of the team.

"[The seniors] are showing a lot more leadership," Palmer said. "There wasn't a lot of yelling from the coaches, it's coming from our leaders.

"Right now we just need to get back to work, and try to start another winning streak tomorrow."