Mississippi State has hired Justin Parker to be the team’s pitching coach.
Parker spent the last two seasons at the University of South Carolina after a three-year campaign at Indiana — where Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis coached before coming to Starkville.
This past season Parker led the Gamecocks’ pitching unit to a 4.19 team ERA, which ranked second in the conference and 12th in the country. Largely as a result of its pitching, South Carolina hosted and won the NCAA Columbia Regional and advanced to the Gainesville Super Regional, earning 42 wins on the season.
Parker is a Wright State graduate who, as a shortstop, earned first-team Horizon League selections in 2007 and 2008, as well as second-team ABCA All-Region in 2007, and was an ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District recipient in 2008.
He was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the sixth round of the 2008 MLB June Amateur Draft where he spent three years playing for the professional team’s minor league affiliates.
The new Bulldogs pitching coach will replace Scott Foxhall, who was fired in May after his pitching unit had amassed an SEC-worst ERA of 6.62 leading up to a second consecutive season without a postseason appearance.
