What changed with this red hot Ole Miss team?
Why the eye test mattered in the Rebels' historic sweep in Baton Rouge + the RPI-midweek cancelation debate
We’ve got a new podcast out with Collin Brister recapping Ole Miss’ series sweep over LSU, the Rebels’ red hot turnaround, where they stand in the NCAA Tournament picture and much more. You can check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts.
We’ve got a lot of baseball to discuss today.
Rebels make history in sweep at LSU
For the first time in the program’s history, Ole Miss swept LSU in Baton Rouge. It’s also the first time Ole Miss has won back-to-back series at LSU since 1964. None of that really matters much other than to put in perspective how hard it’s been for Ole Miss (and really most anyone in college baseball) to win at Alex Box Stadium.
What really matters is that this team has turned around its season over the course of the last two weeks. Winners of seven straight, Ole Miss is now suddenly 32-19 (13-14) and squarely in the mix to earn an at-large birth into the NCAA Tournament. I have a lot of thoughts.
The offense looked like the one we thought it would be in February
I think this past weekend was the first time all season this offense looked close to the to the version most envisioned when the season began in Mid-February. Yes, there have been moments of dominance. Clubbing back-to-back-to-back home runs in game one of the UCF series to bail Derek Diamond out of a bad fifth inning, or doing the same to start game two against Mississippi State, showed this lineup’s power potential. Plating four in the ninth of the rubber match at South Carolina showed its resilient tendencies. Scoring 28 combined runs in games one and three of the SEC-opening series at Auburn might be the only other example that compares to this past weekend in terms of a complete performance, but that middle game at Auburn looked less like this weekend and more like the struggling offense we’ve all watched for two months.
This weekend felt a little different. It felt like the first time this lineup, one thru nine, made opposing pitchers crave a cigarette. It seemed like it was the first time in a while that this offense applied consistent pressure on the opposing pitching staff to the point of it feeling unrelenting. Ole Miss scored 24 runs on 29 hits. The Rebels drew 13 walks and punished LSU’s defensive gaffes. And while it still wasn’t perfect from a sheer numbers perspective — the Rebels struck out a lot and weren’t terrific with runners in scoring position in game three — some of the intangibles felt different.
Ole Miss punished the opponent’s mistakes rather than squander the opportunity. In the second inning of game one, on the heels of Dylan Cruz tagging Dylan DeLucia for two-run shot to give LSU a 2-0 lead, the Rebels flew out twice to start the top half of the second inning. T.J. McCants hit a two-out double. Then, John Kramer struck out in an at-bat that should’ve ended the inning but the ball slipped away from the catcher. Kramer reached first safely.
Ole Miss caught a break.
It’s what the Rebels did with it is what’s noteworthy. Peyton Chatagnier coaxed a walk out of a 2-2 count to load the bases. Hayden Dunhurst sat breaking ball all the way and swatted it back up the middle for a two-out, two-run single that tied the game. Justin Bench worked a walk out of a 1-2 hole and Jacob Gonzalez slapped a 2-RBI single back up the middle. An inning that should’ve been over resulted in the Rebels taking the lead and command of the game via a four-run frame — all with two outs and all because the LSU stumbled slightly and Ole Miss made the Tigers pay.
That is the type of sequence that hasn’t been happening enough with this group. Far too often has this lineup let opponents off the hook. LSU could only wish that trend continued.
Another example is what happened to start game two. Ole Miss was coming off a massive game-one win that spanned two days due to rain. On the surface, the Rebels sat pretty. They had two shots to win one game and get out of Alex Box Stadium with a crucial series win to keep their postseason hopes alive. But we’ve all seen that movie one too many times, right? Great DeLucia performance puts Ole Miss in the driver’s seat of the series after a game… only to go 0-2 in the final two games.
What did Ole Miss do this time around? It refused to let LSU recover in the handful of minutes between the end of game one and the start of game two. Tim Elko and Kevin Graham greeted LSU starter Devin Fontenot with a pair of two-out, back-to-back solo shots. Hayden Dunhurst doubled the run total with a two-run bomb in the second and a five-run fourth inning pretty much put the game to bed. Ole Miss didn’t let LSU catch its breath, wasted no time getting that all-important second win and set itself up for an opportunity to drastically change its postseason outlook with a sweep. That’s the type of killer instinct this offense hasn’t shown.
Ole Miss won this series because of the way it swung it at the plate. Yes, the pitching was good, but it’s been good for over a month now. The offense is what was inexplicably holding this team back. I suppose it’s only a seven-game sample size as far as a turnaround, but LSU had pitched it pretty well in the four weeks leading up to this series, and now this offensive turnaround seems a lot more real. While it may be late, it’s certainly better than never.
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DeLucia serves as workhorse again in marathon game one
I am running out of interesting and unique ways to point out how vitally important Dylan DeLucia has been for Ole Miss this season. He almost single-handedly kept them afloat in their seven-week long struggle through SEC play, and he came up big yet again in Baton Rouge. I don’t really know how I feel about the decision to bring DeLucia back out on Saturday morning after the rain suspended the Friday game in the third inning. He was only at 36 pitches, which is different than 65 pitches or somewhere in that range, and he is an older, more mature arm, but it also felt a little irresponsible. I suppose it worked, though, and that is what ultimately matters. DeLucia came back out and threw 81 more pitches (117) total and only allowed one more run on two more hits as his outing stretched into the eighth inning. He held LSU in check a day after rain thwarted the momentum Ole Miss garnered early in game one. He’s now thrown at least 105 pitches in each of his last five outings. It’s clear Bianco views him as workhorse, innings-eating starter that preserves the bullpen for games two and three. His value in this regard, aside from how well he’s pitched, is hard to overstate.
Where would Ole Miss be without Dylan DeLucia? Think about it like this: Ole Miss is 7-2 in game one of SEC series. DeLucia has started six of those nine and did not start in either of the two losses. Before the year, if you knew that Ole Miss went 7-2 on Fridays entering the final week of the season and swept LSU on the road to finish with a 9-6 conference road record, what would you think the team’s overall SEC record would be? You probably wouldn’t have guessed it would be 13-14. Again, where would Ole Miss be without Dylan DeLucia?
And then there’s Hunter Elliott
It’s kind of remarkable that Ole Miss was winless in game twos in conference play before last weekend’s series with Missouri, particularly when you consider how well Hunter Elliott has pitched since being inserted into the rotation. I think that stat encapsulates how bad the team was outside of DeLucia for most of this SEC season.
Here what Elliott has done in his last three starts: 19.2 IP, 12 H, 5 ER, 26 Ks, 5 BB. He now boasts a 2.84 ERA in SEC play with 50 strikeouts and just 15 walks.
Even beyond the raw numbers, Saturday’s game two outing showed a budding maturity from Elliott. His location and command was pretty spotty in the first two frames. Instead of imploding, he worked his way out of trouble and gave the offense an opportunity to seize control of the game. Elliott is quietly turning into one of the better No. 2 starters in this league. I have said it before and I will say it again: if Ole Miss does get into a regional, Mike Bianco has had plenty of teams make a regional with worse one-two punches than DeLucia-Elliott. The freshman’s emergence gives this team a real shot of advancing through a regional should it make one. His stability in the rotation has also seemingly made bullpen roles more stable and concrete and has worked to the betterment of the pitching staff as a whole.
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The offense showed up for a Sunday game
Back to the offense for a minute. As we’ve discussed a few times in this content space, don’t underestimate the power of a sweep. Sweeping can drastically change a team’s season outlook in a span of three days just as getting swept can. This team has seen both sides of that. In order to secure a sweep in Baton Rouge for the first the program’s history, the offense needed to show up for the entirety of the game. Ole Miss did that. While it wasn’t an elite performance by any means (the Rebels were 1-9 with runners in scoring position), this group seized control of the game early and continue to add on. I think that last part is important. Ole Miss jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, took control, but didn’t fade silently for the next four or five frames. Derek Diamond surrendered that by allowing a pair of home runs in the third and fourth innings because Bianco refuses to acknowledge the available data on Diamond’s struggles the second time through the order.
Instead of succumb to LSU’s counter like we’ve seen this team do so many times this year, Ole Miss returned with one of its biggest punches of the weekend. The Rebels belted a pair of two-run home runs in the top of the fifth to take a 7-3 lead that proved to be enough to win the game. Again, that’s the resiliency that is hard to quantify or articulate, but has obviously been lacking with this group.
What’s different then?
Well, the most obvious difference in this lineup is getting Kevin Graham back. It took him about three weeks to look more like Kevin Graham again, but his reinsertion into this lineup really gives the middle of the order more bite with Gonzalez, Alderman and Elko around him. Earlier in the season, how often did it feel like if Ole Miss didn’t score in the frames in which Gonzalez and Elko were due up (and Alderman, depending on the day), that the Rebels weren’t going to score for two or three more innings because of the dead weight surrounding them? One guy can make a world of difference when that guy is the caliber of hitter that Graham is. In this seven-game winning streak, Graham is 16-28 with 4 home runs, 7 runs scored and 10 RBIs. That’ll work.
The resurgence goes beyond Graham, too. Ole Miss is now getting production from Hayden Dunhurst and Peyton Chatagnier. Both hit crucial home runs in this series. Chatagnier is 11-25 with eight runs scored during the streak. He’s got a hit in six of those seven games and drew two walks in the one game in which he was hitless. Chataniger has had an incredibly frustrating year. He was even benched at one point. But to his credit, it’s never seemed to break his spirit or affect his body language. If you are ranking players on visible emotion and outward ‘give a damn’ level, Chatagnier ranks either at the top or close to it. That’s important on a team that’s lacked that type of energy at times, and it is certainly not easy to maintain when you aren’t producing.
Dunhurst has a five-game hit streak in games he’s started with 6 RBI. All of that together makes for a much fiercer and more difficult lineup to deal with, and one that taxes pitchers throughout the entirety of the game
This weekend was great for Ole Miss from a results standpoint, but it was the intangible things that stood out to me more.
Final series thoughts:
It appears this team has turned a corner of sorts. It looks like a regional host, and while it’s probably too late for that, I suppose it’s better than never that they are heading towards a peak at the time of the year of the utmost importance. Who could’ve imagined this once 7-14 group would be the first to sweep LSU in Baton Rouge for their 7th win a row in a late season ascent? This is one of the most confusing seasons I can remember, but to the Rebels’ everlasting credit, this group didn’t quit and has found a way to turn their season around.
As I have written in this space for the last two weeks, who knows it if it will really matter in the end. Making a regional doesn’t wash away the disappointment that was the first three months of this season, but it least gives a group with a lot of talent a pulse and a puncher’s chance to accomplish the goals they had when they took the field on Opening Day. If accomplished, the path they took toward doing it is irrelevant.
If you’re an Ole Miss fan wondering what to make of all of this and what it means toward the long term future of the program, I would just look at it like this: just enjoy the ride. It’ll all work itself out in the end, whichever direction that is. For a fan base with a good bit of postseason scar tissue over the last two decades, it’s got to be sort of a peaceful way of viewing the postseason: either this team makes a run in the postseason and achieve a result satisfactory enough for Bianco to keep his job (Omaha, or I suppose very close to it in a Super Regional), or they don’t and there is a change in leadership. Neither is necessarily a bad thing and neither result will lead to an offseason of frustration like so many have before. Again, enjoy it for what it is and see where it goes.
Bubble watch
So, about that postseason standing. As of this writing, Ole Miss 37th in the RPI. The Rebels have jumped 20 spots in a week. That is good enough to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. But of course that number is going to fluctuate based on results and is not a concrete number. Ole Miss didn’t cross into some permanent threshold. That RPI number will balloon higher if the Rebels lose games.
So, what does this team need to do to get into the NCAA Tournament? I think one win against Texas A&M this weekend will leave the Rebels feeling very good about their chances of getting into the field of 64. That would put Ole Miss at 14-16, plus a Governor’s Cup win in Hoover that the selection committee views as a conference win even if it does not count in the record books as such. While it’s not a complete certainty the Rebels would get in, and one win at the SEC Tournament Hoover would help, I would be pretty shocked if that wasn’t enough. If Ole Miss takes the series from the red hot Aggies this weekend then their ticket will be completely cemented.
I am likely not alone in pondering the third possibility here: what happens if Ole Miss sweeps Texas A&M and finishes they year at 16-14 in SEC play? Let me first say that I am not predicting this scenario. The Aggies are as hot as any team in college baseball right now, are now ranked No. 4 in the country and it will be a test for Ole Miss to get a game against them much less three, I don’t feel that the hypothetical sweep isn’t silly or irresponsible at this point because, well, this team has swept its last two opponents and is playing as well as anyone in the country. If Ole Miss sweeps Texas A&M, I believe they would enter the SEC Tournament in Hoover with a realistic chance to host a Regional, as insane as that thought may seem. I think two wins in Hoover would be enough. I suppose I would need to see exactly where the Rebels’ RPI at the time if that were to happen, but I don’t see how the selection committee will deny an SEC team a host spot with 19 total SEC wins. I have no idea if that would be unprecedented, but it would seem exceedingly rare if there in fact has been a team denied at 19 total SEC wins before.
So, with that said, everything is on the table for Ole Miss this weekend against Texas A&M. There is still work left to be done to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament and there is the very (emphasis on very) outside shot of leaving the weekend with hosting aspirations. Don’t underestimate the power of a sweep. What a strange, entertaining sport this is. Who could’ve imagined typing the above content segment just two weeks ago.
More realistically, if Ole Miss does get into a road regional, this team is showing signs of being a real handful for any host team. The solidified starting pitching, bullpen depth and concrete roles, coupled with this offensive resurgence does not equate to your run of the mill two or three seed. This group has a shot to make a run. I am fascinated to see what happens.
ASU midweek cancellation sparks debate
Ole Miss canceled its midweek game with Arkansas State in Jonesboro due to “travel and scheduling circumstances.” I wish they had come up with a cooler excuse like threat of a meteor or teamwide dysentery, but of course the excuse provided is not why this game was cancelled. This game was cancelled because the Red Wolves are 11-35 with a 229 RPI. There is absolutely nothing to gain from Ole Miss traveling to play this game. The Rebels are chasing an NCAA Tournament bid with SEC wins and RPI being the two metrics upon which they are judged by the selection committee. If this game was being played at home and not on the road, a win would’ve slightly dinged their RPI. There is little to no upside to playing this game at all.
This has become a hot-button topic of sorts over the last week or so in the world of college baseball. Last week, Texas A&M canceled a midweek game with Incarnate Word, and first-year head coach Jim Schlossnagle was pretty transparent about why they did it: it wasn’t worth the RPI hit. Texas A&M is in the mix for earning a top-eight national seed, and Schlossnagle argued that if RPI is the sole metric upon which teams are judged (outside if quality wins, obviously), then he believes he should do what is in the best interest of his team to have the most optimal postseason draw. It’s hard to argue that logic, and there is another conversation to be had about RPI being a flawed metric, but the fact that it is the predominant measuring stick used to gauge teams’ worthiness of earning an at-large bid, is what has created this phenomenon of canceling midweek games toward the end of the year.
But here’s the thing, this isn’t a new trend. It’s been happening for years, and I guess it’s happened more subtly without having a sitting head coach explicitly say the quiet part out loud (I admired the honesty, for the record) . I imagine there is a faction of people reading this thinking ‘this is soft. Play the games on your schedule. If you win, you have nothing to worry about.’ I understand that sentiment, even though the last part isn’t really true depending on how bad the opponent’s RPI is and where the game is played, but I get it. Ole Miss should’ve pulverizedArkansas State. But this is a weird sport with weird outcomes. Hell, just look at the entirety of Ole Miss’ season. Would you put it past this group to beat anyone or lose to anyone? I remember the North Alabama debacle in 2019, and that Ole Miss team was really good. It’s just not worth it for Ole Miss to go over there. Not to mention, the Rebels have a Thursday-Saturday series this week and a quicker turnaround. It just doesn’t make sense.
The opponent doesn’t suffer from this, either. Arkansas State isn’t fighting to get into the field of 64. Now, it doesn’t have to suffer a likely beating and still gets paid out whatever it is owed from the contract (I have no idea if Ole Miss pays for the home-and-home with Arkansas State in this specific instance, but you get the idea). No one is harmed in this transaction.
Is it the most competitive-spirt driven move? No, but it’s the smart thing to do.
On the horizon
A&M series preview pod
PGA Championship content
Newsletter on A&M’s roster, LIV Golf controversy, NIL and more
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