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.
In short, I thought the team looked really good.
Ryan Rolison came out, set a tone and looked to be in midseason form, earning SEC Pitcher of the Week honors. He showed no reason to doubt the accolades he received over the summer.
Rolison has a lot of eyeballs on him and high expectations with draft eligibility being a thing this summer because of his age. He comes out of the most prestigious summer league as the top prospect, and you wonder how he’ll handle the season.
He looked fantastic and gives Ole Miss a great opportunity to have the advantage on most, if not all, Friday nights. The measurables are as impressive as any pitcher we’ve seen here in a while.
The demeanor is the impressive thing to me. They are human beings, and the goal for every player is to play professionally. Although you want to win at Ole Miss and put your college teammates first, it’s always in the back of your mind because there’s a lot of money waiting in the Draft. You can’t help but allow those thoughts to slip in, especially in preseason before opening day.
In years past, you had to read Baseball America or the newspaper on a certain day to see Draft stock information, but now you just turn on the Internet or check your social media. It’s in your face. You try to block it out, and you prepare for the season, but it’s there in front of you. Rolison is a mature, motivated player that does a great job managing it. That’s commendable.
SOPHOMORES SWING WELL FIRST TWO DAYS
We talked all offseason about how the 2017 freshmen would fare with a year of experience, and I was very pleased with them in the first two games.
The third game, eh, the pitcher did a nice a job, but I am looking at approaches and the first two games they looked outstanding and better than the final game. The days and weeks ahead need to replicate those games, as they looked outstanding.
Thomas Dillard stood out to me the first two games. Some of the struggles last season with Dillard and Grae Kessinger and Cole Zabowski were their being overly concerned with pulling the ball and not using all parts of the field. Coming out of the game they were better with the improved approach.
Dillard had three base hits on Friday, and one was to right field, one to center and one to left field. Based on those results he did exactly what you want to see. Kessinger’s improvement in those two games is he swung the bat with authority when ahead in the count. He wasn’t defensive in opportunistic counts on good pitches. Zabowski goes up the middle and then turns on the home run.
On the whole, I liked the guys the opening weekend. They attempted to fix approach issues, and physically they are in shape and gifted players. It’s the mental side they lacked as freshmen and they have the opportunity to correct that.
Those guys have a full season of seeing far better pitching than they dreamed of in high school. You can’t even come close to comparing SEC pitching to even elite summer ball. You’re facing high draft picks each week. It took a lot of players a long time to see and recognize how to hit velocity and top tier breaking balls. And, more importantly, how to approach the at-bats with that stuff coming at you.
The hope is the long break allowed them to get a breather and shrug off and positively use all the adversity they dealt with last season. They played four or five games a week last season, and the issues and bad at-bats dug a hole they never could recover from.
They looked up in April and the batting averages had ballooned in the wrong direction. Now they have to collect their thoughts, use the past experiences in a positive way and relax. Two out of three games they did that.
On that last day, Winthrop ace Nate Pawelczyk gave more of a look of what you’ll see in SEC play. He had movement and threw a good sinker and an above average slider. It was at least a taste of what’s to come.
You like that and need to face something that’s not a cakewalk. Last year they ran into tougher pitching in Houston, and it rattled them. With Sunday they got a win and a few clutch late at-bats which should help them manage a day when the hits didn’t come in bunches.
There was positive feedback, and they are 3-0 after a weekend. They also got some preparation for what the coming months will bring.
