College World Series 2021: TV Schedule and Pick for Vandy vs. MS State Game 3

The Mississippi State Bulldogs and Vanderbilt Commodores will play a winner-take-all Game 3 on Wednesday for the College World Series title.

Vanderbilt took Game 1 of the best-of-three championship series behind a tremendous pitching performance from Jack Leiter. 

Mississippi State rallied back with its bats in Game 2 to force the series to go the distance inside TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska. 

Reigning champion Vanderbilt will put 2019 CWS Most Valuable Player Kumar Rocker on the mound on Wednesday. He could be met by Mississippi State ace Will Bednar. 

Rocker has one more day of rest than Bednar and is more of a lock to toe the rubber in the first inning. 

Bednar could start, but he may have a shorter leash because of the rest. That might lead to Landon Sims piggybacking the ace for an extended stint.

Wednesday College World Series Info

Game 3: Vanderbilt vs. Mississippi State (7 p.m. ET, ESPN)

Game can be live-streamed on the ESPN app and ESPN.com.

Preview

If we get the Rocker-Bednar showdown we all want, it would be a showdown of potential first-round picks in the MLB draft. 

Rocker is listed as the No. 6 prospect in the 2021 draft class by MLB.com, and Bednar checks in at No. 32. 

Rocker has been a known quantity at the top of the draft board for years after he broke on to the national stage as a freshman and helped Vanderbilt claim the 2019 national championship.

In that series, Vanderbilt lost the first game to the Michigan Wolverines and then won the next two.

In fact, four of the last five College World Series champions fell in the opening contest of three before rallying back to win the last two. 

Mississippi State can follow that trend if its pitchers match the typically high output of Vanderbilt's ace. 

However, that has been a tough task for any of Vanderbilt's opponents to achieve during his three-year collegiate career. 

When the two sides met in the regular season, Rocker gave up three hits and an earned run in nine innings of work.

Mississippi State did not counter with Bednar in that matchup, and its three pitchers on April 23 gave up six earned runs.

Bednar pitched five innings in the second game of that series against Leiter. He gave up one earned run off three hits. 

Bednar may only last five or six innings on Wednesday given his short rest and the volume of high-stress innings he has been asked to pitch in Omaha. 

Mississippi State can call on Sims, its best bullpen arm, to go three or four innings in relief of Bednar to close out the contest. 

Whichever hurlers toe the rubber for the Bulldogs have to be near perfect to compete with Rocker, who has been the best big-game pitcher in college baseball since he arrived at this level. 

Rocker shut down Michigan in his 2019 championship series appearance, and that changed the momentum of the series. 

Rocker is coming off an 11-strikeout outing against the NC State Wolfpack on Friday in which he conceded a single earned run and walked one batter over six innings. 

Bednar is viewed as the closest equivalent to Rocker since he conceded three earned runs in 12.1 innings of work in two outings versus the Texas Longhorns in Omaha. 

Even if Bednar is at his best, it may not be enough to match Rocker, who is a proven commodity at this level of college baseball.

Mississippi State could bank on its familiarity with Rocker to score a few runs, but it is hard to convince anyone that an abundance of runs will come off the starter with more rest.

Pick: Vanderbilt 4, Mississippi State 2

Follow Joe on Twitter, @JTansey90.

Statistics obtained from D1Baseball.com.