Southern Miss Recap

 

          The evolution of the Ole Miss pitching staff was on full display in front of a record crowd Wednesday night in Hattiesburg. Drew McDaniel had been relegated to the midweek after opening the season in the weekend rotation, and it was unclear if Jackson Kimbrell and Josh Mallitz would even have a role after being contributors the prior year. All three had their best outing of the season in a game Ole Miss really needed to boost its postseason resume. The end result was a 4-1 Ole Miss victory – the Rebels fourth straight win. McDaniel earned his fifth win around two losses and Brandon Johnson recorded the final three outs to pick up his seventh save. Currently number 57 in the RPI, that number should rise after the victory over the Golden Eagles who sit at number 17. In a perfect world the Rebels RPI would sit in the 30s by season’s end.

              Drew McDaniel has displayed tantalizing flashes of how good he can be. There was the now-infamous Sunday in Starkville and the gem he spun against Georgia in last year’s SEC tournament.  This year, however, the results have not been what Ole Miss has hoped for out of the once highly regarded prep prospect. None of that mattered on Wednesday as McDaniel turned in the best performance of his junior year gaining a measure of revenge against a team that knocked him around in game 6 of the 2021 Oxford regional. Working ahead in the count and relying on a high spin rate curveball to put batters away, McDaniel stymied a powerful offense over 5 complete innings. Though the breaking ball flattened out a bit in the fourth and fifth innings, the junior kept his composure and prevented the Golden Eagles from crossing the plate in four of his five innings. The only blemish against McDaniel was a second inning home run off the bat of Christopher Sargent. The McDaniel outing comes on the heels of another strong performance against Mississippi State in the Governor’s Cup on April 26^th in Pearl, Mississippi. A locked in Drew McDaniel changes the complexion of the Ole Miss pitching staff down the stretch and into Hoover.

           Speaking of that Sunday in Starkville, Josh Mallitz worked an impressive inning and a third.  Mallitz was consistently around the strike zone and, like McDaniel, put batters away with a sharp breaking ball. The sophomore struck out three of the five batters he faced and did not surrender a hit or walk a batter.

          Working between McDaniel and Mallitz, Jackson Kimbrell was equally impressive. Working through a lefthanded-heavy portion of the Southern Miss lineup, Kimbrell struck out two in an inning and two-thirds and did not allow a hit. The only blemish against the junior lefty was a hit batsman to lead off the sixth inning. Kimbrell’s emergence as a reliable lefthanded option out of the bullpen is huge for a roster that has only three lefties who have seen action this season. Kimbrell and John Gaddis can be extremely versatile pieces for this bullpen down the stretch. Both could be used in matchup scenarios and either could provide a bit of length if needed.

              The Rebel offense did just enough to ensure the solid mound work would not be in vain. Kevin Graham continued his hot streak with a two-run home run in the fourth inning. The following batter, Kemp Alderman, deposited a pitch over the left field wall to make the fourth inning a three-run frame. Both long balls came off of Southern Miss starter Matthew Adams who had been excellent to that point. Tim Elko rounded out the scoring with an RBI single in the fifth inning. In all, the Rebels tallied seven hits against six Golden Eagle arms.

             Ole Miss looks to continue its postseason push on Friday when they travel to Baton Rouge for a three-game set with LSU. There is still significant work to be done if the Rebels wish to play baseball into June, but Wednesday night was another step in walking a narrow path to an NCAA tournament berth.

Arkansas Series Aftermath

 

                  It’s not as though Ole Miss was outclassed in Fayetteville. Maybe that’s why this series and this season have been so difficult to stomach. Perhaps it would be more palatable if the Rebels had been blown out in the Natural State. That way, there would be something concrete to point to, and the series loss would have been easier to explain away. But that wasn’t the case – a series victory and even a sweep were there for the taking.

              It is unlikely that an unfamiliar observer would have pegged the Rebs and Hogs to be at opposite ends of the SEC West standings.  Dylan DeLucia outshined Connor Noland on Friday night, igniting hope that this weekend might have a different outcome than the preceding series. Hunter Elliot matched Hagen Smith in a battle of talented, freshman left handers on Saturday. In the series finale, Rebel Derek Diamond was sharper than his counterpart, Jaxon Wiggins. Each bullpen gave a solid showing over the weekend. In short, the much-maligned pitching staff did what it needed to in a difficult environment. No Razorback has put up the power numbers that Jacob Gonzalez and Tim Elko have. The Razorbacks have hit .280 collectively – just a tick better than Ole Miss at .278.  Yet the reality is that Rebels are likely getting an early start on summer baseball while Arkansas will sleep in their own beds until they reach Omaha. A Rebel season destined to end in Omaha now appears poised to end with a last-ditch Hail Mary in Hoover, Alabama. Unfortunately for Ole Miss, Doug Flutie is not listed on the roster.

              The exact reason for the struggles has been difficult to put a finger on. Except for one weekend in March, the Rebels have matched or exceeded the talent level in the opposing dugout. Individually, the components of the offense have largely performed as expected. Jacob Gonzalez and Tim Elko had had seasons worthy of their preseason All-American Status. Kevin Graham has fought through injury to contribute in the middle of the lineup. Justin Bench, TJ McCants, and Hayden Leatherwood are about where we thought they would be for the season. Kemp Alderman has taken a large step forward and Reagan Burford has made contributions as well. Ben Van Cleve has emerged as a viable pinch-hit option. Despite this, the offense has lacked synergy. Put into laymen’s terms, the sum of the whole has been less than the sum of the individual parts. In comparison, for Arkansas, the end result as a team has exceeded individual successes.

           Perhaps the biggest example of the difference between the two SEC West foes came in the ninth inning of Sunday’s game. Arkansas freshman reliever, and Mississippi native, Brady Tygart took the mound in the top of the ninth looking for a nine-out save. Tygart was pitching for the second consecutive day after getting six high leverage outs on Saturday. 

As ESPN commentator Kyle Peterson noted, Tygart’s stuff wasn’t as sharp on Sunday.   After laboring through the seventh and eight but emerging unscathed, the freshman right-hander walked Calvin Harris to start the ninth. Hayden Dunhurst followed with a strikeout bringing John Kramer to the plate for his inaugural SEC plate experience.  Looking like a veteran, Kramer responded by drawing a walk after taking some tough pitches. I’d like to see more of the St. Louis native moving forward. After Justin Bench lined out in foul territory, Tygart had to get through Jacob Gonzalez to register the game in the win column for the Hogs.  Gonzalez ultimately worked a walk by taking two borderline pitches, drawing the ire of Arkansas manager Dave Van Horn. On two separate occasions, Tygart thought he had caught the Rebel shortstop looking to end the game.

 The walk brought the Rebels mightiest hitter, Tim Elko, to the plate. It would have been easy for the freshman Tygart to fall apart and serve up a meatball to Elko and surrender the lead. After a visit from pitching coach Matt Hobbs, the Mississippi-bred right-hander calmly got ahead of Elko with his patented breaking ball and ultimately induced a harmless fly out to center to end the game. Tygart was in complete control of the at-bat with Elko and really the Gonzalez at-bat as well. He looked the part of the veteran against the Rebels most talented and experienced hitters. Ole Miss didn’t look particularly comfortable in any of their ninth inning at-bats.  On a day when he didn’t have his best stuff, Tygart managed to find his best breaking balls when it mattered most. That’s precisely where Ole Miss has faltered this season. Jacob Gonzalez’s heroics against Mississippi State aside, the timely hit and pitch have largely eluded them this season. Never had it been more evident and heart breaking than on Saturday and Sunday in front of a national television audience. It was quite ironic that a Mississippi native sunk his home state team on a day in which an ad for Arkansas’s scholarship lottery loomed in the background on the back stop. That’s a discussion for another day.

As I mentioned previously, it is hard to put a finger on exactly why Ole Miss hasn’t been able to consistently deliver in big situations. Maybe the team is pressing. Perhaps it’s just dumb luck. Some might even say that that’s just baseball. Whatever the reason, the Rebels need to turn it around this weekend against Missouri to even have a chance to say a prayer in Hoover.