Dellucci: Last question mark for Ole Miss is adjustment to SEC pitching

David Dellucci, an All-American outfielder at Ole Miss and a member of the 2001 World Series champion Arizona Diamondbacks, played Major League Baseball for 13 seasons and is currently an analyst for the SEC Network. Each week during the college baseball season, Dellucci will provide his thoughts to Rivals.com.

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The Southeastern Conference season is here this week, and it leaves one last question mark when it comes to an Ole Miss club that has been tremendous and shown significant improvement from last season.

I don’t base success or failure offensively off results right now. Instead, it’s about approach and execution, and I’m seeing a better job — especially from Thomas Dillard and Cole Zabowski — of hitting to all fields. Those two and others are consistently using the correct approach, and after a season ago when the Rebels lacked big bats in the middle of of the order, that’s certainly not the case right now.

Dillard, Zabowski, Nick Fortes, Tim Elko and Tyler Keenan can all run the ball out of the park at any time, and it’s given a power potential that is necessary in this league. I believe Chase Cockrell is the secret weapon for this lineup if they can keep him where he is and staying back on breaking pitches. If so this is going to be one fun offense, but that’s that lone question.

Baseball is about adjustments, and Ole Miss has been successful against opposing pitchers through 16 games, but with all respect to them, the pitchers they have faced aren’t near what they will see in the SEC consistently.

They’ve faced a lot of softer throwing pitchers, and you’re not going to see that in this league. They’ve faced pitchers who can’t get breaking pitches over. I thought Eastern Illinois’ Carson Haws had some good stuff, and Long Beach’s Clayton Andrews was a quality arm, but the breaking balls were soft, and you could read the pitches out of Andrew’s hand.

Remember when Ole Miss went to Houston last year they saw multiple pitchers throwing 93-94 with quality changeups. That hasn’t happened yet, and you have to understand there’s a big difference in an 85 MPH fastball and a 76 MPH curve and a 95 MPH fastball and a 76 MPH curve. The guy with the 95 can start your swing quicker because you have to catch up to the fastball, but when it’s the breaking pitch any leaning or movement forward and you can’t stay back for it.

Are the quality at-bats to this point based off pitchers or good overall approaches? Have they matured to handled the step up to SEC pitchers? This isn’t meant to be a negative at all because they’ve handled things exceptionally well, but it is the thing that we haven’t been shown evidence of, and it’s about to come 30 times. Even Tennessee will be a considerable step up in opposing arms, and then the gauntlet begins after that.

I’m most impressed by the defense to this point. It’s a much better unit than what we’ve seen in past years, and it’s deeper with more athleticism. I think the middle infielders cover more ground than we’ve seen before, and the outfielders have made tremendous plays that don’t always show on highlights. Dillard has been a lot of that with the catches against the wall and cutting balls off to stop extra bases.

Defense is always important but especially with a team that pitches like Ole Miss. If those guys are going to deal and keep you in games then you have to make the plays. You have two guys up top with Brady Feigl and Ryan Rolison who are getting so many ground outs. Those should make for quick innings and low-stress plays for the defense.

Jacob Adams is making plays in the hole, and Grae Kessinger has been fantastic all the way around. I’ve been impressed by the overall solid play by Keenan and Elko at third base. That’s the depth that’s so important because those two are somewhat interchangeable except they hit from different sides.

In the position I’m in now I keep up with all the teams, and I see letdowns each week. Ole Miss hasn’t had that, and the Rebels have beaten every team they are supposed to through nearly a third of the season. That’s maturity, and that’s improved focus because in past years some of these games would have slipped away with flat play.

We have a long way to go, but I’m proud of them. It’s nice to know that there are no regrets or missed chances through four weeks. The record is impressive and deserved but now it gets much tougher.