Nashville, TENN--It was Bryce Cunningham's night on Friday at Hawkins Field as the junior pitcher threw a complete game shutout and shut down Mississippi State to lead Vanderbilt to a 4-0 win on Friday night.
Cunningham surrendered just two hits, struck out four and walked just two as he finished this one off himself for Vanderbilt.
That was Cunningham's sixth win on the season and may have been his most impressive of the year. The Vanderbilt starter shut down an offense that came into Friday night averaging 7.21 runs per game.
"It's the top one," Cunningham said when asked about where that stacks up with the best starts of his career. "Haven't been able to that before so that's cool."
Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin echoed that sentiment.
"It was special," Corbin said. "He carried his velocity. His breaking ball was good. His attack was good."
The Vanderbilt junior threw 122 pitches in the win, 74 of those were strikes.
Another element to this; Cunningham gave Vanderbilt's bullpen a night off. That's especially important as it sits without JD Thompson and Ethan McElvain.
"That's a much improved kid, for sure." Corbin said of Cunningham. "Anytime you can keep the pitchers in the bullpen that helps a lot."
Vanderbilt's offense finished Friday with just five hits and four runs but the Commodores were able to win on the back of holding Mississippi State to just two hits itself.
Vanderbilt shortstop Jonathan Vastine took the first pitch the Commodores saw deep to center field on a Khal Stephen fastball. That would be a sign of things to come in the first inning.
With the homer, Vastine took the lead in home runs hit on the team. Vanderbilt catcher Alan Espinal said 'anything you can do, I can do better' in his at bat that inning, though.
The Vanderbilt catcher took a ball that bounced all the way to the Mississippi State bus on a ride all the way to the Mississippi State bus in center field. Espinal's homer went 429 feet and was hit at 109 miles per hour.
That gave Vanderbilt a 2-0 lead before the end of the first.
The lead felt even bigger than that due to what Cunningham did. The junior emphasizes his mindset as something that carried him through those first few innings.
"I think it was just a mindset," Cunningham said. "Just attacking the best I could. Trusting my defense ultimately and it showed out tonight."
The Commodores extended their lead to 3-0 in the second as Matthew Polk, who got on with a single to right field, advanced to second on a stolen base and got to third on a passed ball was driven in by Colin Barczi on an RBI groundout.
Vanderbilt had a quiet third, fourth and fifth but stayed in control as Cunningham put together back-to-back 1-2-3 innings in the fourth and fifth after allowing his first baserunner in the fourth.
Cunningham allowed just three baserunners the rest of the night as Vanderbilt tacked on one more with a Braden Holcomb double as well as some applicable use of Jacob Humphrey's speed as it cruised to a Friday night victory over Mississippi State.
The Commodores moved to 24-4 at home with the series-opening win.
In a league and a year that is so heavily predicated on hitting. It was the pitching that won on Friday night.
"I think we probably had two major league guys that were pitching tonight," Corbin said. "I could see both of those kids pitching at the highest level."
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