Gary Henderson returns to Lexington this weekend but will be in the visitors; dugout.
He spent 14 years at Kentucky, serving as pitching coach and head coach of the Wildcats from 2003-16. Henderson is now Mississippi State’s interim head coach. He said it will strictly be a business trip for his Bulldogs.
“You’ll see some friends and I had good relationships up there, and it’ll be nice to see some of those people for sure,” Henderson said. “I’m proud of what some of the kids have done that we recruited while I was there. Those relationships are important and remain intact and are precious but you’ve got to go win baseball games.”
Henderson had his initial meeting against the Wildcats in Starkville last season while serving as MSU’s pitching coach. The Diamond Dogs won the final two games of that series after losing the opener.
State leads the overall series 61-39 but has lost the series during its last four trips to Lexington.
The series gets underway at 6:30 tonight on ESPNU. The final two games will be televised on SEC Network with Saturday’s game beginning at 4 p.m., and Sunday’s finale at 2 p.m.
The Diamond Dogs (27-22, 11-13 SEC) will maintain their pitching rotation of southpaws Konnor Pilkington and Ethan Small in the first two games but Sunday’s slot remains vacant. Jacob Billingsley and Denver McQuary have started Game 3 the past two weeks but neither provided a quality outing.
Graduate transfer JP France was a starter his whole career at Tulane and started once at the beginning of this season but Henderson likes him in the long relief role.
“Right now as good as JP is pitching out of the pen, I’m reluctant to change that role,” Henderson said. “I like that feeling of having him down there and we can use him twice on the weekend.”
No. 21 Kentucky (31-17, 11-13 SEC) is coming off a series loss at Tennessee last weekend but beat Indiana 7-6 on Tuesday.
The Wildcats lead the SEC with a .408 on-base percentage, are second with 72 home runs and third with 351 runs scored. Third baseman Luke Heyer tops the conference with 17 homers and 53 RBIs.
