Tennessee exposed Ole Miss' unwarranted confidence
Rebels hammered by Vols and a Mississippian wins on the PGA Tour
Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. We’ve got a new podcast out with Collin Brister that features our usual Sunday baseball conversation. We talked about Tennessee destroying Ole Miss, the unsustainable rotation, a lack of fight, weird quotes and where the team goes from here. You can check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We have much of the same and a whole lot more to dive into today.
This was the worst regular season series loss I can remember
I won’t mince words here: Ole Miss was non-competitive against Tennessee. The rankings may have said the Rebels were the No. 1 team in the country and that the Vols were in the conversation but not quite there. The play on the painted a different picture. Rankings don’t mean hardly anything in March, but what they can offer is glimpse at how skewed things look and feel early on in a season, and how little we actually know until SEC play arrives. Tennessee is the best team in the country. The Vols deservedly took that title in the polls on Monday morning. Ole Miss is not, and frankly, doesn’t appear to be close.
It’s not just that the Rebels were swept at home by a top-five team. It’s the utterly lifeless and non-competitive manner in which it unfolded. That is the worst regular season series loss I can remember. The 2019 Mississippi State series comes to mind, but at least those games were competitive. The 2016 South Carolina series is another one that is in the running, but the Gamecocks were a pretty good team that year and, if nothing else, at least the Rebels held a lead at some point in that series, something they cannot claim after the atrocity that was these three games. I won’t beat a dead horse here in exclaiming how bad it was, but what transpired at Swayze Field over the weekend featured one team that looked like it had something to prove, fired on all cylinders and took the fight to the opponent. The other team looked like a group that was totally unaware that it had any flaws at all and possessed an unwarranted confidence that bordered on arrogance.
It’s one weekend. It’s March. Teams have bad weekends. These things happen, but this was a significant moment in Ole Miss’ season whether this team ends up in Omaha or fizzling out in a road regional. This point in the season will hold significance no matter where the rest of the path leads. Let’s dive in.
A pair of puzzling postgame quotes on Friday, and another on Sunday
In my six years covering Ole Miss Baseball every day, I am not sure I can recall a time in which multiple quotes from player media availability actually made any sort of significant ripple in terms of news. I remember a freshman named Will Ethridge telling me “we had a fire inside our bodies and wanted to come out and kick the crap out of them,” after a Saturday night victory over LSU at Alex Box Stadium in 2017. People got a kick out of that harmless passion for a night. Outfielder Ryan Olenek once told us he’d be comfortable playing pretty much any position on the field, and that he didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t pitch high-leverage innings in the SEC despite not having pitched since high school. Those were both humorous nuggets that led weekday notebooks, but I can’t recall anything like the pair of quotes Dylan Delucia and Tim Elko offered on Friday night after being beaten 12-1.
Elko: “We just weren’t ready. We were a little flat-footed from the start. We didn’t come out with that fire under us like they did… We just came out and expected us to roll over them. And we didn’t… They are a really good team, and we have to come out with fire more than we did today.”
Delucia: “We took them lightly; it won’t happen again. We're going to win tomorrow, I'll tell you that. It's one of those things where they play in a small field. We have a bigger field so we thought we could throw it in to them. It didn't work out."
There are a few places we could start, but I suppose we will first address the captain of the team saying that Ole Miss came out expecting to roll over a 20-1 Tennessee team that was ranked 5th in the country. If there is a morsel of truth to this, what would lead them to adopt such a mindset that? Who has this team beaten? A 14-10 UCF club that has since lost series to UNC-Greensboro, North Florida and Samford and hasn’t won a series since February 27? A borderline NCAA Tournament-caliber Auburn team? I was pretty puzzled why this one. I am not the biggest ‘rah-rah’ guy who yells about culture and chemistry, but the captain of the team admitting that the Rebels came out flat against a top-five team in an environment that felt like a postseason game is… interesting.
The Delucia quote is even stranger. He starts off admitting much of the same — that Ole Miss took Tennessee lightly. Delucia then followed that up by saying that because the Volunteers play in a small ballpark, the pitching staff mistakenly believed they could throw inside to a lineup that led the SEC in every single major offensive statistical category? Did you see some of the nukes the men in orange hit? Is there a park in the country those balls wouldn’t have cleared? Maybe Yosemite or Yellowstone?
Also, Delucia is from Florida and arrived at Ole Miss via junior college. You know where he’s never pitched, (unless I am missing something)? Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville. That tells me he heard this theory from the coaching staff? It’s just a bizarre quote.
Did Ole Miss lose on Friday because it came out flat? Of course not. It lost because its starting pitcher collected four outs and the offense was completely manhandled by Chase Burns’ 98 mph fastball. But both are still strange things to say after being demolished by double digits for the second time in seven days.
Then, there was a walk-back of the comments.. by another player. Closer Brandon Johnson spoke to the media after the 4-3 loss on Sunday. According Chase Parham, he offered up this quote completely unprompted: “I would like to say this, that our teammates said some words that weren’t exactly right; that’s a really good team over there and respect them. Obviously we think they are the best tam in the country. They showed that. We have all the respect in the world for them and we never took them lightly or anything like that.”
Now, THIS is definitely something I never saw in my time covering the program. A player never contradicted and walked back the statements of two other teammates. I am not even saying it’s a bad thing. I sort of respect the move by Johnson. He wanted to set the record straight. I don’t know if his intent was to basically say “Look, they kicked our ass because they are really good, not because we took them lightly.” But it came off that way and I find that to be more admirable than blaming park sizes and a collective mindset. Perhaps this is a glimpse into Johnson deciding to take on vocal leadership role. I have no clue. But it at least sounded better than saying ‘yeah, we figured we’d crush this top-five team.’
Again, Ole Miss didn’t get swept because it took Tennessee lightly. The Rebels got swept because they played terribly and were beaten soundly by a better team. But the quotes from Friday read like a team that carried itself with a level of confidence that is usually authenticated by accomplishment, and looks more like unwarranted arrogance when the accomplishment is lacking.
The starting pitching is an issue that needs to be treated like an overhaul
You all don’t need me to tell you that Ole Miss’ starting pitching is an unsustainable mess that needs to be fixed immediately. John Gaddis collected four outs in the Friday loss. He struck out the side in the first inning and exited in the second after the Volunteers blitzed him for a six spot. Gaddis has now collected a total of 14 outs in two SEC starts. You cannot compete in the Southeastern Conference with that level of production from a No. 1 starter, no matter how down the pitching is across the league. This isn’t meant to pile on Gaddis. I have written multiple times that I didn’t love him being thrust into the Friday role (though I understood the reasoning when it happened) and that his skillset doesn’t equip him to succeed in that role.
What is more concerning with Gaddis is the perception of what many thought he would be versus what he currently is. The scouting report on Gaddis was a veteran pitcher who knows how to get hitters out without overwhelming them with velocity, a guy who locates his fastball precisely, throws a good breaking ball for a strike and lives on the corners. When he isn’t locating his fastball well, trouble is on the horizon. Well, therein lies the problem. Gaddis has made five starts and six total appearances on the year (the Saturday VCU game was washed out because of rain and he made a lengthy ‘relief’ appearance in the finale). Fastball command has been an issue in three of those outings and there is an argument to be made that it is four of the six. Bianco had a quote after the game about this and ended it with “and that’s just not him.” At what point does that become him? With respect to the Southland Conference, a gleaning track record at Texas A&M Corpus Christi cannot significantly outweigh nearly a half season worth of starts at a higher level of competition. I don’t know what Gaddis’ role would be if he’s pulled from the rotation. He’s a left-hander on a team that isn’t filled with lefty options. I think there is an argument to be made he can contribute on Saturday or Sunday, but I don’t think you can trot Gaddis back out on Friday nights anymore. Ole Miss will struggle to have a chance against the better teams in the league.
Gaddis is far from the only piece of the issue. In six SEC games, Ole Miss has had a starter complete five innings one time. That dog won’t hunt. I thought Jack Dougherty was *okay* on Saturday. It looked like he made a few costly mistakes, his defense failed him a bit and Tennessee just hit some good pitches. The concerning part of Dougherty being a starter is that it’s fastball and… what else? He didn’t struggle because he was wild. Dougherty struck out six hitters without a walk. Tennessee hit his fastball well and, at this juncture, that’s all it takes to solve Dougherty. That’s a problem if you’re a starter as opposed to a high-leverage reliever. I still think he provides the best option as the No. 2 starter for now, but I also get the argument for moving him back to the bullpen. Anything and everything should be on the table right now in terms of possible solutions to this problem, because it is the issue that we all figured might plague this team in the preseason, and it is playing out like most thought it would.
Then there is Derek Diamond, who was actually pretty good on Sunday and gave Ole Miss a chance to win the game. Diamond went 4.2 innings and allowed three earned runs on six hits with two strikeouts and no walks. That will give this team a chance on most Sundays. As strange as it is to say, is Sunday Diamond the closest thing to a constant when discussing this rotation? I am not sure how you take him off the Sunday role after that outing.
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So, how is the rotation fixed?
That’s one hell of a question. Maybe a better question is can it be fixed? To that, I think I lean yes, but I really want to give more of a verbal shoulder shrug. For all of Bianco’s flaws, he almost always figures out how to have a competitive rotation. He almost always seems to figure it out, at least to achieving a level of competency. It’s fascinating that perhaps his toughest puzzle to solve comes when the stakes are the highest. We all know where this goes if this team fizzles out in a regional. I don’t have the answer to fixing the rotation, but I will offer you some theories to ponder.
At what point do you put Brandon Johnson in the rotation? If someone asked you, yes, you the reader, who the best pitcher on Ole Miss’ pitching staff is, what would be your answer? It’s Johnson. Can you honestly say he’s being used in a way that maximizes his value? He’s thrown one meaningful SEC inning this year and that’s solely due to Hayden Dunhurst running into a fastball to cut a 4-0 deficit to 4-3 in the eighth inning of Sunday’s loss. How many meaningful innings has Johnson thrown this year? He’s pitched in a one-run game twice. It’s the last week of March. What good is a closer if there is nothing to close?
Johnson also has the high-velocity profile of a Friday night guy and his secondary stuff is plenty good enough. Why not throw him on Friday nights, at least give yourself and chance and figure the rest out? I’ll offer one more, less tangible argument in favor of this. Remember last year when Ole Miss struggled on Friday nights? Even when Gunnar Hoglund was healthy, but particularly after he got hurt, Ole Miss wasn’t great in series openers. Do you know why that didn’t become a major issue? Because everyone in the stadium and watching on television knew Doug Nikhazy was going to make it a 1-1 series and that the Rebels were going to be a nightmare to try to beat when No. 26 took the mound. Even beyond that, the team played with a different mindset behind Nikhazy. They just looked different. The body language was different. Doug Day became a thing for a reason. This 2022 team has no semblance of that. And while I am not in the locker room, on the field or in the dugout to actually gain a sense of what these guys think, don’t you figure they sense the struggles on the mound when they are out in the field? Could Johnson bring a shot of confidence to the rest of the team? He’s also got a little bit of that f**k you attitude needed on Friday. He has an edge about him when he pitches. Nikhazy had the same thing. Is it worth making Johnson the Friday guy from that standpoint alone? I don’t know, but it couldn’t hurt to try. What is there to lose? This team needs more of an edge in general.
Drew McDaniel is the scheduled starter for #RebsBSB vs. Memphis on Wednesday but Mother Nature is a -280 favorite. https://t.co/TDOuHUhkffProbable starters for #RebsBSB (16-7) and UNA (6-16): Ole Miss: RHP Jack Washburn 2-1, 3.54 ERA, 23 K, 13 BB North Alabama: RHP Austin Nichols 0-3, 10.55 ERA, 18 K, 9 BB
Chase Parham @RivalsChaseFor two weeks in a row, Delucia has eaten up innings behind a premature Gaddis departure. He covered 6.2 innings of relief on Friday night and allowed five runs on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks. Is that lineup-stifling stuff? No, but it’s longer than any starter for Ole Miss has gone in SEC play and that line would’ve given the Rebels a puncher’s chance on Friday or Saturday. Delucia has had a weird season from a statistical standpoint, partially due to a bad outing against Arkansas State, but he has good stuff and gets outs. Would it stun me if he was the Saturday guy next week? Not in the slightest.
I have remarked on a couple of occasions that the Ole Miss rotation seems to struggle to put away hitters. Whether it’s Gaddis being lost when the fastball command slips, Diamond not having a wipeout pitch or Dougherty being a one-trick pony with the fastball, Ole Miss seems like it loses a lot of hitters after getting ahead in counts and gives up a lot of hits in favorable counts. I don’t have statistics to back that up, but I think there is something to the theory. At what point do you put the two guys with the highest velocity and best stuff in the rotation and figure everything else out on the fly? I am talking about Johnson and Riley Maddox. I realize Maddox is a true freshman who pitched in the MAIS this time a year ago, and I certainly subscribe to the theory of being cautious about giving freshmen more to bite off than they can chew, but you cannot worry about the long-term in a season with so much on the line. I have no idea if Maddox can start in the SEC as a freshman, but I do know that a 96 mph fastball and a plus curveball can get anyone out at any level. I feel good wagering that Maddox is a Friday before he leaves Ole Miss, what’s the real harm in inserting him to the rotation now, even if he isn’t quite ‘ready?’ Would Johnson-Maddox-Diamond with Dougherty as the closer be the worst option in the world? I think it could work.
Maybe there is value in giving Hunter Elliott and Mason Nichols a look. Elliott got tagged a bit against Tennessee, but so did everyone.
Call me nuts, but why not give Josh Mallitz a look in the midweek as a starter? Then evaluate him further from there in terms of his shot to contribute on the weekend. He’s only pitched in mop-up time this season, but he’s located a 93 mph fastball on both sides of the plate and dumped a slider in the strike zone consistently. Mallitz struggled as a freshman, but there is also a reason Bianco saw something in him to give him a shot as both a midweek starter and a weekend bullpen arm as a true freshman. He’s not the first college pitcher to struggle as a freshman. I know you might think I am reaching here by mentioning Mallitz as a candidate to save this broken machine, but I will remind you that this time last year, neither Dougherty or Johnson existed in terms of contributing to the team. Would Mallitz taking a huge jump as a sophomore be half as a crazy as Dougherty going from unknown redshirt to starting a do-or-die game in a regional in a span of seven weeks? No options should be taken off the table.
I don’t know the answer to the rotation problem. But what I do know is that something different has to be tried. You can’t run it back at Kentucky next week as is.
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The offense was abysmal as well
Ole Miss didn’t lose this series on pitching alone. The pitching woes made the scores lopsided and the games noncompetitive. The offense wasn’t nearly good enough to beat any decent team either. Tennessee had more extra base hits than Ole Miss had hits on the weekend. Jacob Gonzalez and Peyton Chatagnier — the leadoff and No. 2 hitters — went a combined 0-24 on the weekend.
In the Bianco era, Ole Miss has always fared decently well against velocity. Rarely is an Ole Miss team mowed down by sheer velocity, but that is exactly what happened on Friday against Burns. The Rebels simply couldn’t catch up to the fastball. Saturday was a little bit more of the same, but I thought the approach against Chase Dollander on Saturday was more alarming than the Friday struggles. Dollander is a good pitcher. He was a freshman All-American at Georgia Southern last year before transferring to Tennessee, but Ole Miss looked as confused against Dollander as it would’ve if Jacob DeGrom took the mound.
SIDENOTE: can you think of another school, with a similar scholarship situation to Tennessee that badly needed to address starting in the transfer portal? Things that’ll make ya go hmm.
Anyway, the point is that Ole Miss had a lot of non-competitive at bats this weekend This was the most surprising development of the series in my opinion. I figured pitching could doom the Rebels against a really good Volunteers lineup. I didn’t think the offense would score four runs in 25 innings and seven runs total on the weekend. Ole Miss misses Kevin Graham and Calvin Harris, but those two being healthy and in the lineup wasn’t changing this outcome. The Rebels struggle to move the baseball with men on base. They were dominated in a way I didn’t think an offense of this caliber could be handled. Maybe it’s just a bad weekend? Maybe they ran into the best pitching staff in college baseball? I don’t know. I am not ready to declare the offense a full-blown catastrophe yet, but I do think Ole Miss is another bad week at the plate away from that being a discussion.
Final series thoughts:
As bad as it looked, there is still a lot of baseball left. Arkansas swept Mississippi State in March of last year. The Bulldogs lost two of three to Vanderbilt and Missouri, too. I am not making a direct comparison to the two teams and you shouldn’t read it as such, I am just telling you it is a long season and there is time for this team to find itself. There is also a chance we look up in six weeks and Tennessee has blitzed this entire league on its way to becoming by far and away the best team in the sport. I think that is entirely possible that is already the case. The Volunteers were even better than I thought, and they expect their Friday night starter Blake Tidwell to pitch at some point this season. They could become really scary when Tidwell is back. There is a chance Ole Miss just ran into a buzz saw. The way it looked and the lopsided scores didn’t help with the perception either, but the schedule is favorable for this team.
Ole Miss goes to Kentucky this weekend and then has Alabama at home. Those are two crucial series and will be a litmus test for the toughness of this team. You could argue that’s exactly what it needs — If Ole Miss plays well, it will win both series. If Ole Miss plays poorly, it will lose both series and be in a really difficult place entering the halfway point of SEC play. These next two weeks are crucial before the schedule stiffens on the back end of conference play. There is time for this team to figure out its rotation issues, for the lineup to return to form and for them to get healthy and become a better version of itself than what was on display against Tennessee. The Rebels simply need to get tougher and execute better.
Around the SEC
Let’s have a look at a busy weekend in the SEC
Kentucky took two from Georgia in Lexington - The Wildcats needed this after being swept at Arkansas two weeks ago. But it came at a cost. Kentucky lost Friday night starter Mason Hazelwood for the season. Ole Miss had better win two up there.
Mississippi State took two from Alabama in Starkville - Alabama was roughly four pitches away from sweeping, yet left with a series loss. Credit to the Bulldogs for walking the Tide off twice. I am not sure how good MSU is, but they have a toughness and resiliency baked into their culture that Ole Miss could sorely use. This was another missed opportunity for the Tide.
Auburn took two at Texas A&M - Maybe Auburn is a regional two-seed and A&M’s win in Baton Rouge will be seen as a bit of a fluke. This was a really nice rebound for Butch Thompson’s club.
LSU took two at Florida - After nearly getting swept and losing a series at home to the Aggies, LSU back-ended a series at Florida. The Tigers lineup can really hit. They’ve actually pitched it decently well so far. It’s the defense that has failed them. It looks like LSU cleaned things up a bit in Gainesville.
South Carolina took two from Vanderbilt in Columbia - Are we sure there isn’t parity within the league with everyone not named Tennessee? South Carolina took a similar ass kicking by the Vols as Ole Miss did, but then took two from the Commodores. Maybe Tennessee is head and shoulders better than everyone else?
Arkansas took two at Missouri - Mizzou won a game and lost one in extra innings. This was way more competitive than I thought it would be. Credit to the Tigers for showing some fight.
Ramey wins PGA Tour’s Puntcana Championship
I hate to obnoxiously say I told you so, but I TOLD ALL OF YOU SO. A Mississippian has won on the PGA Tour. Fulton native Chad Ramey birdied four holes in a row on the back nine to chase down Ben Martin and secure his first PGA Tour win at the Puntacana Championship in the Dominican.
This is a long time coming for Ramey. He’s an incredible story and a testament to the power of self-belief and perseverance. The 29-year-old Mississippi State alum went four years without status on a major tour, cutting his teeth on the mini-tours. He got Korn Ferry Tour status through the Canadian Tour, kept his card, survived a pandemic-induced, two-year-long season on the most grueling tour in the sport and earned his PGA Tour card. Now, he has a two-year exemption, an invite into the PGA Championship and next years Players Championship, and has changed his entire life. He is also officially a millionaire.
Ramey also lives and practices on the nine-hole course he grew up on. His father manages the course. It has no driving range. Seriously. A PGA Tour pro lives and practices in rural Mississippi at a course with no driving range.
Ramey is a great story. This won’t be the last time he wins, either. His win also means that a Mississippian has finished 1st and 2nd in consecutive weeks on the PGA Tour after Davis Riley lost in a playoff to Sam Burns at the Valspar. We are taking over professional golf. You just watch.
On the horizon
Spring football check-in
Kentucky series preview
March Madness reaction
That is all from me today. Thanks for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun by smashing the subscribe button below. It is free.