STARKVILLE – At least John Cohen didn’t have to watch his bullpen blow up in Mississippi State’s 12-9 loss to Auburn on Sunday.

No, the first-year coach had been ejected in the sixth inning for arguing a call and instead heard the Bulldogs drop the game, and the series, via play-by-play man Jim Ellis.

“It’s a good thing we have the best radio guy in the country, because at the very least you get to listen to something of quality associated with Mississippi State baseball on the radio,” Cohen said. “Because there’s nothing of quality happening on the field there for a while.”

MSU (16-15, 4-8 SEC) saw an 8-2 lead erased by a barrage of Auburn home runs and then some woefully off-target pitching in a decisive eighth inning. In that frame, when State used four of its seven pitchers, three bases-loaded walks broke a 9-9 tie and gave the Tigers (20-10, 6-6) the winning margin.

Over its last three games, MSU’s bullpen has given up 19 runs on 19 hits and walked 11 – in 92⁄3 innings of work. They were not used in Saturday’s 8-3 win, a complete game by Nick Routt.

“Everybody knows we’re trying to dodge our bullpen; that bullpen has so many walks in it,” Cohen said. “It’s personnel that just walks people, and there’s not much we can do about that. In the future, we will have pitchers that have a background of throwing strikes; these guys do not.”

Things began to unravel when starter Forrest Moore, pitching on four days’ rest, gave up no-out home runs to Casey McElroy and Trent Mummey in the fifth, which trimmed MSU’s lead to 8-5.

Reliever Jared Wesson came in and gave up two more homers to make it 8-7.

After Jet Butler’s sac fly edged State’s lead to 9-7 in the sixth, Tony Caldwell’s second long ball of the day, a two-run shot off Greg Houston, tied the game.

Meanwhile, MSU’s bats cooled off against Bradley Hendrix (5-2), Auburn’s fourth and final pitcher of the day. He worked four innings, allowing only one run on two hits.

“It seemed like he started hitting the corners,” said MSU first baseman Connor Powers. “The umpire did show, if you hit the corners he was going to call it, so that’s what he started to do, and he got the calls.”

Powers led the Bulldogs with four hits, including a solo homer in the first to tie it at 1-1.

MSU got some early breathing room with a five-run third inning and chased Auburn starter Taylor Thompson, who entered the game with a 7.98 ERA and exited with that number at 9.87.

A bases-loaded single by Russ Sneed tied it at 2-2, and Butler pushed one across on a fielder’s choice to give State a 3-2 lead.

Thompson was pulled after Ryan Powers’ two-out, ground-rule double made it 4-2. Grant Hogue capped the scoring with a two-run single off reliever Paul Burnside.

After a pair of midweek games against UAB and Southern Miss, MSU is back on the road for a weekend series at Tennessee.