Just four games in, Ole Miss arrives at first hurdle in its title defense
What to make of Hunter Elliott's elbow injury?
From a performance standpoint, it’s been a relatively uneventful start to the 2023 season for Ole Miss Baseball. The Rebels blew past a hapless Delaware club on their way to an opening-weekend sweep that saw them outscore the Blue Hens 35-6 — and required only 24 innings to do it.
But from a health standpoint, Ole Miss has arrived at its first major hurdle in its path to defending its national title. Chase Parham reported on Monday morning (first on the story, per usual. You should subscribe to RebelGrove.com), that Elliott “felt something in his arm” after his outing on Friday afternoon.
After the Rebels’ win over Arkansas State on Tuesday night, Mike Bianco addressed Elliott’s status:
“After Friday's start, Hunter felt some tightness in his forearm which is concerning," Bianco told reporters on site. "It's not normal for him. Felt it again on Sunday, threw though, felt OK and no soreness throwing. Threw again on Monday but for precautionary reasons had an MRI on Monday afternoon, and we still don't really have the results yet.
"Sent the MRI off to several orthopedics and getting information over the next couple days and find out what the plan of attack is. Having the MRI, we think it's in the best interest he doesn't throw this weekend. Until later we don't know what his status is... Please don't ask beyond that because I don't have anything to add to that. I tried to give as much info as I could."
If you’re unfamiliar with baseball pitching injuries, there are two words that stick out here: “forearm tightness”. If you are familiar with baseball pitching injuries, those are the two words that likely caused your heart to sink upon reading the quote. Forearm tightness is a pretty common symptom of ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) damage in the elbow. Without wanting to completely speculate like some schmuck who has never been anywhere close to being a doctor, here’s an article from the University of Connecticut’s orthopedic group website that includes forearm tightness among the list of symptoms for a UCL tear.
Seemingly, in most cases, significant UCL damage in a pitcher’s throwing elbow ultimately leads to Tommy John Surgery. The recovery process from this procedure lasts 12-18 months. If that is indeed the case, Ole Miss will be without its ace for the remainder of the 2023 season.
But, as telling of a symptom as forearm tightness is, I am not going to pretend to assure you that is the case. I haven’t the slightest clue what the extent of the injury is or what the outcome will be. I’ve just covered enough elbow injuries to provide context to the symptoms. It’s simply the worst case-scenario. The best outcome is that there is no structural damage, Elliott misses a start or two, and is ultimately fine for the remainder of the season. For Elliott’s sake, I hope that is the case. Seeing someone as talented as the sophomore lefty on the shelf with a significant injury sucks. He seems like a good kid, too.
There were two telling pieces of Bianco’s quote on Tuesday night. The first is that Elliott had undergone an MRI and that the results were being sent to multiple orthopedic surgeons. Don’t confuse that statement for the results not being known. MRI’s aren’t like urine samples. You don’t send them off to discover results, you send them off to get opinions on the next course of action, as Bianco alluded to. The program, in all likelihood, knows what the MRI showed. The million dollar question is what it showed and, in turn, what is the best course of action. Getting multiple opinions is hardly uncommon. If you want positive speculation, perhaps the fact that they’re seeking multiple opinions means the outcome is not as cut-and-dry as a full-on tear and surgery being the imminent outcome. Partial tears to the UCL can be rehabbed without surgery, though in many cases, it is just a temporary solution that ultimately results in surgery. Again, I am just thinking through hypotheticals.
The second piece of Bianco’s quote that stood out was the fact that forearm tightness was the only symptom mentioned. Elliott also looked healthy on the mound on Friday and has thrown twice since without discomfort. Could that mean it isn’t as serious as feared? Maybe? I wouldn’t bank on it, but it’s possible.
Bianco also stated that Elliott won’t pitch this Friday against Maryland, and that Jack Dougherty will start in his place. We likely won’t know Elliott’s long-term prognosis for several days. Whether the best or worst case scenario becomes reality, Ole Miss is going to have to find a way to survive without its All-American ace for an undetermined period of time.
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Pitching depth is the one question for this team
Ole Miss is now four games into the 2023 season. I originally intended to relaunch this newsletter with some thoughts on opening weekend, but after coughing up a lung for most of Sunday and Monday while battling a sinus infection, I couldn’t finish the piece. I suppose that was somewhat fortuitous timing from a relevance standpoint, given the Elliott news. But even before that development, when pondering the uncertainties on this team, I quickly gravitated toward pitching depth.
Ole Miss lost two of its three rotation slots from the 2022 team, though the No. 3 starter didn’t exactly leave a cavernous void to fill. And even though I previously described the Elliott injury as the first major hurdle this team faced in its title defense, losing Josh Mallitz in the fall to Tommy John surgery was a pretty massive blow to the pitching staff, too. Mallitz had an incredible 2022 campaign that almost seems underrated. His postseason performance was borderline legendary and he only surrendered five earned runs for the entirety of the year in 31 innings. That, coupled with Riley Maddox likely to miss most, if not all, of this season as he too recovers from Tommy John surgery, formulating depth on the pitching staff is seemingly the biggest challenge Bianco and his staff faced entering the 2023 campaign. And to state the obvious, if Elliott is indeed out for an extended period of time, the challenge only becomes harder.
Let’s start with the rotation. So far, so good, when it comes to replacing the other two slots behind Elliott. Freshman right-hander Grayson Saunier pitched four innings of one-hit, shutout baseball on Saturday. Saunier ran into some mild turbulence created by four walks, but made quality pitches in some key spots to slip out of trouble. He was up to 94 with the fastball and flashed a pretty good command of four pitches. Bianco said Saunier had the best fall of any pitcher since he’s been the coach at Ole Miss. Saunier is only the fourth true freshman to start the season in the weekend rotation in the Bianco era. Everything in this column should be prefaced with the fact that it’s a tiny sample size against a bad team, but he certainly looked the part.
As did Xavier Rivas, an Indianapolis University transfer who pretty quickly became a front-runner for the Sunday job from the time he committed to Ole Miss. The left-hander pitched 4.1 innings of one-run, one-hit baseball with four walks and eight strikeouts. Rivas had some pretty insane swing-and-miss numbers at the Division-II level. In 12 starts last season, Rivas compiled at least 10 strikeouts in 10 of the 12 starts, and 11 or more in nine of the 12 starts. He totaled 128 strikeouts in 80 innings last year. It is clear that this staff thought the junior’s stuff would translate to the SEC level. Ole Miss doesn’t need him to be dominant on Sundays, it needs him to give them a chance by preventing the game being from being blown open in the first four innings — something Derek Diamond was unable to do last spring. Rivas’ debut as a Rebel was pretty strong, all things considered.
So, where does that leave the bullpen? The absence of Mallitz and Maddox shoulders a heavier burden on both the newcomers and the unproven returnees. In the opening-weekend sweep, the bullpen covered 10.2 innings and allowed three earned runs on six hits with nine walks and 19 strikeouts. So, there was some good and some bad, but overall a pretty sturdy job done. You saw glimpses of versatility. J.T. Quinn, Tuesday’s starter in the win over Arkansas State, pitched a scoreless inning of relief in which he topped out at 96 with the fastball. Junior college transfer righty Tommy Henniger offered a bit of a different look with a lower arm-slot delivery and some serious movement within his offspeed stuff. Sam Tookian’s large frame hit 94 with the fastball from the left side and Jack Dougherty looked like he was unaware there was an offseason between his outing in the College World Series Final and his dominant performance on Saturday — one that saw him slip out of a bases-loaded, sixth-inning jam and preserve what was ultimately a blowout win.
It’d be foolish to make declarations after one weekend and a midweek game. Again, I will go out on a limb and declare that the mighty Blue Hens will not reach the College World series, nor will Arkansas State. But the bullpen is something that intrigues me, particularly if Dougherty is removed from the back end of the pen and thrust in the rotation with Elliott out. There are some options, and seemingly more versatility than some of Bianco’s other teams. There just isn’t a ton of proven experience outside of Dougherty and Mason Nichols. One of the most impressive aspects of Bianco’s tenure at Ole Miss is that he almost always figures out how to cobble together a competitive pitching staff, but injuries have tied his hands a bit, more so than any year in recent memory. How does he do it again this year? I am eager to see it play out.
Kemp Alderman is a safety hazard
Through four games, the Ole Miss left fielder is 7-15 with a pair of home runs, three walks and eight runs driven in. Perhaps more impressive than all of that are the insane exit velocity numbers he boasts when he squares up a baseball. Take the hardest hit balls in the Sunday win as evidence.
That is not normal. 116 exit velocity is absurd, and he did it twice, only to follow it up with 112 and 110 for good measure. He added one at 109 on Saturday and another at 108 on Friday to get the weekend started. His home run on Tuesday clocked in at a measly 108, too. I think I would rather be hit by a train than play third base with Alderman in the batter’s box.
Lineup card attrition was minimal
Another thing that stuck out to me from opening weekend was a lack of tinkering with the lineup card. Bianco, like most coaches, usually toys with different lineups to see what he has to work with in the early weeks of the season. But this year, designated hitter was the only lineup slot that varied. He gave upperclassmen Reagan Burfurd the nod on Opening Day, and then gave freshmen Judd Utermark and Will Furniss a start in each of the latter two games.
On the surface, this is somewhat surprising, given that Ole Miss lost three of eight position players from the 2022 team (and that’s not counting Calvin Harris becoming the catcher with Hayden Dunhurst’s departure), but it also speaks to the job Bianco and this staff did filling holes on the roster. Ole Miss added first baseman Anthony Calarco from Northwestern, center fielder Ethan Groff from Tulane, and seems confident in junior college transfer Ethan Lege’s ability to man third base. That’s a good thing for the Rebels. I still think a couple of these spots could see some fluidity, given the strong debuts Furniss and Utermark had, and DH will be a revolving door for a while due to a plethora of options — including the tantalizing potential of Tywone Malone — but the lack of tinkering is seemingly fueled by confidence and certainty, which is a luxury few teams have in early February.
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A dumb observation: I would not want to fight this team
I have never been in a physical altercation in my life. If you’ve ever met me, the reasons are obvious. I am a generous 5-foot-6, haven’t touched a weight since 7th grade football and weigh 145 lbs. with my clothes soaking wet. Jokes aside, this team has some enormous humans on it. From a literal SEC defensive lineman seeing at bats at DH, to the monstrosity of a human that Alderman is, the frontline is beefy.
The additions to pad depth within this hypothetical fight club roster are pretty strong, too. If I coached against Utermark and Furniss in youth baseball, I would’ve demanded to see birth certificates. Tookian is every bit of 6-foot-5, 225 lbs. Calarco is 6-foot-4, 235 lbs. Rivas is 6-foot-4, 225 lbs.
I don’t even really have a point in all of this, other than that if I saw this team exit a bus for a road series, I would wonder if that school’s football team had called in a group to scrimmage them in the spring. It is a shame that Tennessee, the inventors of college baseball, is not on the schedule this year, because the question of whether the Vols’ fake-tough-guy bravado would be tolerated by the group in red and blue will unfortunately remain an unanswered question.
We’ll have more later this week as the Rebels gear up for a series against a ranked Maryland club.
In the mean time, some content to peruse:
I did a story on the tent city that formed at Swayze Field in the week leading up to the season as students camped out to get their spot in line to claim their student section seats. It’s a testament to the program Bianco has built and how its deeply woven into the Oxford community and the school.
Could I interest you in a pod on Rebel Baseball legend Sikes Orvis reminiscing on his time at Ole Miss, why he hates undershirts and him enduring the most ridiculous ejection in recent memory? Here you go.
Collin Brister and I recapped the opening weekend of the season on the podcast here.