A revamped rotation and a slumping offense
Ole Miss takes care of business at Kentucky and a quarterback battle is heating up.
Hope everyone had a good weekend. We have a new podcast out with Collin Brister in which we recapped the Kentucky series and took a look at what unfolded around the SEC. You can check that out here or any where you get podcasts.
We have much of the same and more to discuss today.
Revamped rotation lifts Rebels to much-needed series win
Ole Miss took two at Kentucky over the weekend. I don’t think the Wildcats are an NCAA Tournament-caliber team, but they have a decent lineup and any road series win in this league is hard-earned, particularly this year. I also think we learned a little bit more about this Ole Miss team. I think what happened around the league over the weekend helps put the last three weeks in context, too. Here are some thoughts.
The revamped rotation was fantastic
Before the series, I could’ve foreseen quite a few different ways these three games would play out. I am not sure I could’ve envisioned a scenario in which an entirely new rotation that featured two guys who had never started a game in their Ole Miss careers, and another who had never started an SEC game, would carry this team to a series win. Hell, I am not even sure I could’ve guessed what the rotation ended up being if I had 50 guesses. Did anyone have a Dylan Delucia-Hunter Elliott-Jack Washburn trio, in that order, on the radar?
(the above preview says Derek Diamond will start against Southern Miss in Pearl )
Well, that group combined to cover 15.2 innings and allowed one earned run (three unearned runs) on 12 hits with 15 strikeouts and five walks. Think Mike Bianco would take those numbers for seven more weekends until the end of the season? I think so. Whatever you think of Bianco, you have to give him credit for finding a way to piece together a competitive weekend rotation that gave the team a chance. It was certainly an outside the box approach — and it worked. When the rotation has struggled in previous years, Bianco has almost always figured it out. It’s only one weekend, and the Rebels will face far tougher lineups than Kentucky’s, but that’s a lineup that ranked in the top half of the league in most all statistical categories other than home runs and the starting pitching held the Cats to one earned run. The team needed every bit of it, too.
Delucia spun a gem Ole Miss badly needed
Dylan Delucia was absolutely nails for Ole Miss in its 2-1 Friday win. Given what happened the weekend prior, this team needed a shot of confidence via a starting pitcher. You have to think that if the Rebels had fallen in an early 3-0 hole because its Friday guy found trouble in the game’s first two innings once again, it would’ve at least somewhat invoked a sense of ‘oh, here we go again.' Instead, Delucia retired nine of the first 11 hitters he faced en route to spinning a gem this team sorely needed. When he walked off the mound on Friday, he owned the two longest outings by an Ole Miss pitcher in SEC play despite having only made one start. He’s still the only guy to cover six innings or more in an SEC game.
While I didn’t fully understand the decision to pitch Delucia on Friday, I didn’t question it simply because the starting pitching had been so putrid, I didn’t think there were any bad ideas. Delucia’s base-level stats are misleading about the season he has had. He endured one bad outing against Arkansas State and fell victim to some poor luck luck against Oral Roberts. His stuff is really good and he has started to throw his changeup more often, which gives him three pitches he can throw for strikes. That is what Friday night arms do. Above all else, Delucia looked more in control from his first pitch to his last more so than any other starter performance I can remember this year aside from John Gaddis’ start in game two against UCF.
One last note on Delucia, and it’s a small thing I probably read too much into, but when he exited the game in the seventh inning, the TV cameras showed him in the dugout. His teammates approached him to presumably congratulate him on a great performance and thank him for bailing out the offense. While Delucia wasn’t an asshole to his teammates by any stretch, he didn’t exactly look thrilled to be accepting praise at that very moment. Instead, he seemed livid at himself for losing Kentucky outfielder Adam Fogel, the final hitter Delucia faced, to a walk after getting ahead 0-2. It was a hell of an at-bat by Fogel too, but the mindset is what stuck out to me. You need a little bit of that bulldog, hardass attitude from your Friday guy. That, and the composure he displayed throughout his outing were great signs. It’s only one outing, and I’d like to see it a couple of more times before making any sort of declaration about Delucia in this role. I am not going to tell you he’ll be a top-five Friday guy in this league, but even if he’s middle of the pack, it’s a hell of a lot better than what Ole Miss had before. Delucia gave Ole Miss a performance it desperately needed.
Bianco sold out for a win in game one
I cannot remember the last time I watched an Ole Miss baseball series in which I genuinely had no clue who was coming out of the bullpen next and who would start the next day, but that was certainly the case in this series. John Gaddis came out of the bullpen in relief of Delucia on Friday in the 7th inning of a 1-1 game. He inherited two base runners and quickly induced a strikeout and a flyout to get the Rebels out of the jam. For a guy that has spent the last season-and-a-half as a starter, I thought this was a pretty fine job by him. Being a starter for seven weeks and then going directly into a high-leverage relief situation is not easy to do. Gaddis handled it masterfully. If he is able to continue to do that, he could fill an important role for a bullpen that has been good but lacks left-handed arms.
Bianco then turned the game over to Brandon Johnson in the eighth with the score still tied 1-1. This is when I began to think ‘oh wow, they better find a way to score a run here and win this one,’ because imagine squandering that outing from Delucia, burning Johnson and presumably eliminating Gaddis as an option to start a must-win game two. That’s partially what made Friday’s win so important for this team. Ole Miss did exactly that. It found a way to scratch a run across despite a pretty abysmal offensive performance and then allowed its best arm to close the game out. Today’s conversation would be much different had the Rebels not pulled that one out. Bianco went all in for a win in a tie game late and it paid off.
Hunter Elliott was fine
Elliott had a weird start to his outing, but I thought he was fine overall. He threw a lot of pitches in the first inning, in part due to an error, but didn’t let things snowball. Elliott went 4.1 innings an allowed two unearned runs on four hits with four strikeouts and two walks. One of the unearned runs was because of an error on his part, but I thought he gave Ole Miss a chance to win the game on a day in which he didn’t pitch his best. I’d like to see him start again against Alabama before making any concrete determinations.
The Saturday game got away from Ole Miss in the later innings because Riley Maddox and Derek Diamond struggled in relief of Elliott. I am not really sure what you do with Diamond at this point. He simply doesn’t have a pitch to put away hitters. In the 7th inning, he gave up a single in a 1-2 count and a home run in a 2-2 count an at-bat in which he was ahead 1-2 at one point. That made it a 6-2 game, and with the way Ole Miss was swinging it at the plate, it felt like a pretty tough hill to climb.
With Delucia entering the rotation, Ole Miss needs an effective long relief option that can keep them in games if the starter finds trouble early. This type of role is often the difference between taking two games versus sweeping and taking one versus getting swept. Ole Miss is going to need to do the former at least once this year and will almost certainly have to avoid the latter before the end of the regular season. Maybe that guy becomes Diamond. Maybe it is Gaddis or McDaniel. I just struggle to see exactly what Diamond’s role is right now. In some ways, that is what makes the weekend’s pitching performance more impressive: Ole Miss’ opening day starter contributed a footnote relief appearance in a 9-2 loss, and its most recent Friday starter was the first arm out of the bullpen. That is a lot of change to overcome. Credit to Bianco, as well as Delucia, Elliott and Washburn for making it happen.
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Washburn delivers in must-win scenario
Make no mistake about it. Ole Miss simply had to win that Sunday game. Good teams beat this version of Kentucky on the road, and if the Rebels are going to meet their postseason expectations, starting 3-6 with a series loss to Kentucky was going to make for one hell of a tough hill to climb. Bianco turned to Washburn to start the finale and he delivered. Washburn allowed one unearned run on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks in five innings. Missing up in the zone and an inability to throw quality strikes has plagued Washburn at times this year, but he had no problems in either capacity on Sunday. He has arguably the best breaking ball on the team. He located the curveball and the fastball consistently. Kentucky seemed to struggled to decipher the two. There was almost no hard contact in Washburn’s five innings.
It also looked natural, too. Washburn looked like a composed starter rather than a keyed up reliever in the ninth inning of a one-run game. That’s something the coaching staff has worked with him on is his mindset. A starter’s mindset is different than a reliever’s. He showed a lot of toughness when he stranded two base runners in each of the first two innings. Considering how bad the offense was for the first two games, Washburn needed to throw up zeroes. He did exactly that as the offense continued to struggle for the first three innings of this final game. It afforded Ole Miss time to figure it out at the plate and blow the game open, which it did via a six-run fifth inning to take an 8-0 lead. I believe Ole Miss brought Washburn in from Oregon State to be a starter, and as simplistic and silly as it sounds, Sunday just sort of looked like what the coaching staff had in mind for Washburn in terms of the role he would play.
It’s just one weekend, but the toughness Washburn, Delucia and Elliott showed was pretty unrecognizable to anything Ole Miss had run out to the mound at any point this season from a starting pitching standpoint. It cannot be understated how important that was to the short and long term future of this team.
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So, about that offense
Ole Miss was pretty bad at the plate for the first 21 innings of this series. The Rebels scored just two runs in the Friday game in what was essentially a weekend version of a Johnny Wholestaff approach from Kentucky on the heels of the Wildcats losing their Friday night starter to injury the week before. The Rebels were 3-30 on Saturday against a guy who pitched at Eastern Kentucky last year and was making just his third start for the Wildcats. In fairness, Saturday starter Darren Williams has good numbers on the year, but he doesn’t have the arm talent and stuff to justifiably shutdown a good SEC offense like he did Ole Miss. The Rebels scored four runs in the first 21 innings of this series before exploding for ten in the final six innings.
From a long-term perspective, if you made me wager on whether this offense ends up looking like it did in those final six innings versus the first 21, I still tend to lean toward the final six. I don’t think this offense is bad. I think it was — or, perhaps, is — slumping a bit. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue. It absolutely is. After an 0-4 performance on Friday with three strikeouts, Bianco gave Peyton Chatagnier the day off on Saturday. Chatagnier went 0-5 on Sunday. He has two hits in the team’s last seven games. He does not have a hit in an SEC game since the finale at Auburn. Hayden Dunhurst snapped a three-game hitless streak with a pair on Sunday. He has six hits in nine SEC contests.
A couple more troubling numbers:
Ole Miss in nonconference games has drawn 108 walks and struck out 112 times. In SEC play it has drawn 32 walks and struck out 105 times.
Only two guys are hitting above .260 in SEC play.
In conference games only, Ole Miss leads the SEC in strikeouts and is 11th in walks drawn.
In nine SEC games, the only regular starters with an OPS north of .800 are Tim Elko, Jacob Gonzalez and Kemp Alderman.
Mind you, Calvin Harris doesn’t qualify for those final three numbers. I have no idea why or how he only got one start this weekend. It seems like a pretty simple rule of thumb that a guy who entered the series with a .572 batting average should probably play every day. He reached base twice in the one start he made and sort of got screwed on an error ruling that very easily could have been a hit.
Ole Miss needs Kevin Graham back. I also think it has too much talent to continue struggling. Nine games is a tiny sample size when looking at SEC-only stats. But I think the numbers paint a picture of an offense that is pressing rather than one that will be bad long term. To the Rebels’ credit, the bats awoke when they really needed it this weekend.
Final thoughts:
Overall, this was mission accomplished. I thought this series spoke volumes about the toughness and resolve of this team. The Rebels entered this series as a team coming off one of the most embarrassing regular season series losses in the Bianco era. The rotation was in shambles and Ole Miss simply had to win two games. Three newcomers stepped up and gave lengthy outings as starters. The offense struggled but found a way to do just enough. That is what tough teams do.
When you look around the SEC, Tennessee swept Vanderbilt in Nashville to move to 27-1 (9-0). Is it possible last weekend should be viewed through a different lens? Tennessee has destroyed everyone and everything in its path. The Vols look like one of the best college baseball teams of the last 15 years. Aside from that, there is a lot of parity around the league. The middle of the league seems pretty average and the bottom seems better than usual. Auburn took two of three in Baton Rouge and is now 5-4 after three weekends. Is it possible that series win will look a lot better than most thought at the time?
Getting swept at home certainly hurt Ole Miss, but 4-5 after three weeks with a pair of road series wins is not the worst place to be. The Rebels seemingly gained traction in solving their rotation problem. One could argue that was and remains their toughest issue to fix. There is a lot of baseball left to play, and Ole Miss still has plenty of things to improve on, but if the offense rounds into form, this team might be fine.
Around the SEC
Let’s have a look around the SEC. It was an eventful weekend that I think taught us a lot.
Georgia swept Florida in Gainesville - This was a terrific weekend for the Bulldogs, but I think this tells me more about Florida. The Gators have now lost five straight league games and are struggling on the mound.
Missouri took two from South Carolina at home - Missouri is actually pretty competitive. South Carolina is injured and wildly inconsistent. That’ll be an interesting road series for the Rebels in a couple of weeks.
Auburn took two from LSU in Baton Rouge - Auburn is pretty good. That’s a massive series win and back-to-back road series wins for Butch Thompson’s club. LSU’s defense is pretty bad and the Tigers had a tough weekend at the plate.
Alabama took two at home from Texas A&M - If the Crimson Tide really is an NCAA Tournament team, they need to win series like this at home, which they did. I think Texas A&M’s series win in Baton Rouge looks a bit fluky now.
Tennessee swept Vanderbilt in Nashville - It’s Tennessee, a large gap, and then everyone else right now. Wow.
Arkansas took two from Mississippi State at home - The Razorbacks hammered the Bulldogs in the first two games and are 7-2. I am not sure how good Arkansas is yet but we will find out in the next two weeks. Mississippi State simply doesn’t have the pitching. But to the Bulldogs’ credit, avoiding a sweep with an extra innings win on Sunday was huge. That’s a win that could prove to be important if the Bulldogs are sweating it out on the NCAA Tournament bubble in June.
Dart, Altmyer in tight competition
Jackson Dart and Luke Altmyer spoke to the media last week. Ole Miss had a scrimmage on Saturday and and now enters its third week of spring ball. Here are couple of takeaways from a late-March media session that I will try not to read too much into.
Both guys seem pretty put together in a media setting. That may sound silly, and I get a very controlled college media setting on the Ole Miss beat is hardly being thrown into the lion’s den, but after covering football for a half decade and listening to a slew of dud interviews and canned answers, I was impressed with both Altmyer and Dart’s poise. Both gave pretty thoughtful answers and weren’t a walking cliché.
Dart is a mature kid who has experienced a lot for a second year college player, Think about this: in the span of 14 months, Dart left high school to become an spring enrollee at USC after he came onto the recruiting scene late, had his head coach fired two games into his college career, was thrown into the fire four days after his coach was fired — just a handful of minutes into the third game of his college career on the road at Washington State. He suffered a knee injury less than two quarters into that game, came back and played the final five games partially healthy, was essentially forced to transfer after USC hired Lincoln Riley and Riley wanted his guy, Caleb Williams — probably the only player on the transfer market that could have unseated Dart as the incumbent starter — as his quarterback at USC. Dart, a Utah native now finds himself in Oxford, Mississippi competing for the starting job. All of this happened before his 19th birthday next month. He has had a lot thrown at him in the last nine months and his poise is impressive.
And then there is Altmyer, a guy who recruiters and coaches describe as tough as hell, and someone who acquitted himself pretty well in relief of Matt Corral during the Sugar Bowl, given the circumstances. I don’t think Altmyer should be discounted in this competition, and it sounds as if he has had a pretty strong spring so far. It’s an interesting dynamic. Lane Kiffin didn’t bring Dart into sit, but Luke Altmyer is a former 4-star prospect who has been in the program a year and is perfectly capable of winning the job. I am fascinated to see how this storyline plays out and if there is a narrative shift by the end of the spring. I doubt we really learn anything concrete until fall camp, but Altmyer’s strong start in the spring has raised some antennas.
Both quarterbacks were asked about targets they are developing chemistry with and if anyone at receiver has stood out. Both mentioned Jonathan Mingo. Altmyer mentioned how nice it is having Mingo fully healthy again. There is new blood in the Ole Miss wide receivers room via the portal, but it’s the returning players that will decide whether that group is an asset or a liability. The latter was the case for most of last year due to injuries and poor play.
Dart unveiled a shocking revaluation when he proclaimed that Mississippi and California were “polar opposites.” He flashed a grin and said he is adjusting nicely though. I think all of this change and transition in the last nine months has been made slightly easier by Dart having tight end and fellow USC transfer Michael Trigg by his side. Those two seem to have a close bond and have experienced on the majority of this journey together. Not that it was any huge secret, but Dart confirmed that Trigg told him that he planned on going wherever Dart went when the two entered the portal. If was 18 years old and went from Los Angeles to Mississippi because my coach wanted another quarterback, I feel like I would’ve enjoyed having a close friend to experience the change with me.
Dart said Altmyer was the first player to come up, shake his hand and introduce himself on the first day of drills.
Altmyer called himself a perfectionist of sorts and said he is his own harshest critic. I didn’t read that as a “I work too hard and I care too much” type of answer. Altmyer even said it’s something he “struggles with” at times. I don’t know if that means anything at all, but I found that admission interesting.
This has been your March Ole Miss quarterback battle update.
On the horizon
college basketball season in review podcast with Bracken Ray
Alabama series preview
Masters week content
Mailbag Friday
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