Dellucci: Mike Bianco showed trust in his players this week
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.
When Ole Miss was down 4-0 and then 6-5 to Murray State it would have been easy to just move the focus ahead to the weekend and move one.
A big road trip upcoming and a big deficit on a Tuesday with the rain falling. That’s a time that toughness mentally is tested. I think Ole Miss can take pride in not having a letdown yet. If you look across the SEC I’ve seen a lot of letdowns, and the Rebels haven’t had one.
If you’re physically better than most everybody else and your’e mentally tougher than everybody, then you have the recipe to be a championship team. Ole Miss resisting to lay down against the Racers means that in May when they look back at the overall resume, instead of seeing a missed chance, they see a pride point.
Houston Roth really impressed me on Tuesday. He gives up four runs in the first inning, and he kept his body language positive and never seemed off his game or flustered. It’s a matter of how you handle yourself, and he was steady like he was up four runs. Mike Bianco should get credit for trusting Roth to stay in the game.
That sends a message to the pitching staff and the team that he has trust in his players. A lot of coaches across the country would have pulled him immediately and doing so would have put pressure on the pitchers and gotten in their heads that if you’re not perfect you’re out of here. It’s little things that add up over the course of a season that make or break you.
The head coach has the back of staring pitchers. There was a rested bullpen, so he wasn’t saving anyone. He trusted Roth and the offense. It likely set the correct tone for a situation down the line later in the year.
There should be excitement to go to the West Coast; to play against a great baseball program and showcase the program and themselves to a different area of the country and to a different set of scouts and fans. I wanted to leave them with a great impression of myself. You want them to remember the day Ole Miss was on that field.
The first road trip to Houston last year was a horror, but you don’t want them thinking about that at all. You can’t go backwards. You just think about what you have now. They are on a great run and functioning well in all phases. It’s a wonderful opportunity to play a name program while hot.
Ole Miss is going to see a different style of baseball. Long Beach is all about going station to station and forcing the defense to make mistakes. There will also be a pitching staff that is different from SEC play. It’s going to be sinker-dominant with lots of off speed. That style hampered Ole Miss last year, so they have to be better.
The first kid from Murray was a lower level of this style. The Rebels have to make adjustments to win. Ole Miss is good at hitting fastballs, but it has to take a different approach and use all fields. Otherwise it’ll be rolling over pitches and giving Long Beach a lot of ground outs.