Dellucci: Young Rebels show they are prepared for the moment

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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Freshmen in college baseball have a different mindset than the newcomers did in my era.

These guys are tested and seasoned by the time they get to college, and they have played around the country and against the best competition through travel ball, all-star events and showcases. They are so much more prepared. And they are ready for the competition from the jump.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s pressure, and it’s difficult, but the good thing for this Ole Miss team that impressed everyone and surprised us all with a sweep of East Carolina, a team 90 feet from Omaha in 2016, is that each freshman isn’t out there alone with eyes only on him. It’s the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation, and there are so many highly touted players that it feels normal to them. They find comfort in each other, and it lowers the pressure.

These freshmen are in a much more advantageous environment than Tate Blackman two years ago. He had no one to share the attention from a freshman standpoint, and it was overwhelming. Ole Miss started four freshmen on opening day, and I was very impressed with their maturity during the weekend. The hunger to win every single game. The Rebels were down in each game during the weekend, and they still had the hunger on Sunday to make a comeback despite already having won the series.

To gel quickly and not lay down late on the weekend is special for young guys — or for any team, no matter roster age.

The new guys have to keep an even mindset. Consistency is the key, and there will be lumps and good and bad streaks. That’s a fact, but it’s about how quickly you can bounce back and tune out the bad parts. How do you get out of a funk? The challenge is to not get too high or low, and that’s where the veterans come in.

Ole Miss has a very solid nucleus of players with experience, and those guys carried things through the weekend, especially on the mound. The veterans help the new players be comfortable. They lead by example, keep it loose and allow everyone to just play.

I saw the young players overanxious on Friday during the opener. They swung more aggressive than they’d like, and they were caught up in the moment. But they settled down as the game went on. It didn’t take them long to relax, and that fed throughout the team in both directions. Thomas Dillard stands out to me because he took close, really good pitches during the weekend. And he didn’t even flinch at them. He also took offspeed pitches well, and they all looked comfortable by game three. I was one of only a couple freshmen on my team, and I certainly didn’t look like that in game three.

The offense didn’t click one through nine during the weekend, but the takeaway is there were heroes each game. It showed the Rebels they can win without captains Colby Bortles and Blackman having huge series. They can go in the locker room and know they got three wins without using Blackman’s bat. It lessens the burden mentally, and it lets the young players feed off each other.

They have the talent. They expect to win now. There’s no better confidence booster than beating the No. 10 team in the country in that fashion. It was a different style of victory in each game. When this situation comes up again they know they already did it. It’s confidence through succeeding.

Will Stokes and Dallas Woolfolk provided Ole Miss with stopping power in the late innings.

They combined for the three saves, and Woolfolk struck out five of the six batters he faced on Sunday with a mix that included fastballs in the mid 90s. Mike Bianco chose to pitch both right-handers on back-to-back days, and they were each better on day two.

Both Stokes and Woolfolk were more relaxed in the second outings. The ball moves a little more when your arm is fatigued a little bit. Their pitches had more movement on the second day. Woolfolk had a lot of sink and run on Sunday, and the arm strength is there. Every bullpen arm has the strength, so with Woolfolk it’s 95 MPH with run and movement, and it’s almost unhittable. Same thing with Stokes. Bianco has the ability to run them out there — or at least one of them — most games and provide a tremendous late-innings advantage.

And there was also finesse shown in the bullpen, as Andy Pagnozzi got the double play ball on Saturday that potentially saved the game. If there were ever a pitcher that proves the point that if you attack the zone the hitter will get himself out more times than not it’s Pagnozzi. He has good stuff, but he throws to the bat, and he doesn’t get himself into jams and pick at the corners. If you’re a defender, you want him in there because he’s not afraid, and he keeps you active.

And on the other side of the pitching equation, Cooper Johnson was as advertised defensively. Everybody you talk to for months has mentioned his arm strength, and he was able to show it. His arm is going to stop the run game from a lot of SEC teams that like to cause havoc. But he is accurate, too. That’s just as important. He executed those back-picks at first base, twice catching runners because of the strength and accuracy. He trusts that difficult throw.

You have to be incredibly accurate to throw behind runners. When there were large secondary leads, he snapped it down there. That by itself takes pressure off pitchers. It makes them better because they don’t worry about speeding up deliveries or altering anything to control the run game. They can just pitch, and he’ll take care of it.

The equalizer is his cannon. It’s early for everybody, so that’s worth mentioning. Opposing runners are in the first week, so they aren’t comfortable in their leads. It’s early for catchers, too, but catchers are typically ahead of the runners at this point of the season. But that arm will play at any point of the season.

If he keeps it up, word will get out quickly, and coaches will decide not to run the risk. Odds aren’t in their favor against that arm, and Johnson is a guy that normally moves to the next level before colleges have to see him.