OXFORD | Ole Miss won what was mostly a laugher Wednesday over Alcorn State, but the ninth inning at least added some curiosity as the season moves on.
Kemp Alderman, who hit a ball over the batter’s eye earlier in the night and has a .359 average and a team-leading 14 home runs, made his college pitching debut for the Rebels.
The junior struck out the side in the ninth inning of Ole Miss’ 13-4 win over the Braves (5-24). The Rebels (19-14, 2-10) travel to Mississippi State (20-14, 3-9) for a weekend series starting at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Alderman faced four batters and threw 12 of 21 pitches for strikes. He struck the first batter out looking on a full-count pitch, walked the next hitter on a 3-1 count and then had back to back strikeouts, both swinging.
Alderman was a two-way player out of high school but hasn’t pitched at Ole Miss outside of practice early in his career.
"Obviously, we haven't pitched it well," Mike Bianco said. "As you have injuries and guys that don't have success, you're searching and you're looking and you're looking at this week, we said, 'Hey, let's run him out there.’"
Ole Miss is 11th in the SEC in overall ERA (5.53) and 10th in ERA (7.10) for SEC games only.
Hunter Elliott has been out since the season opener and could return “in some capacity” next week against LSU. Riley Maddox, who had Tommy John surgery last May, is a possibility by the end of the month.
Brayden Jones and Mitch Murrell were unavailable Tuesday and Wednesday because of a sore elbow and lingering back issues, respectively.
Alderman woke up to a text message about bullpen times on Monday, telling him to be available that day at 2:20 p.m. He thought it meant he was catching against Memphis on Tuesday, but pitching coach Carl Lafferty cleared it up in a subsequent text message.
“I was pretty fired up,” Alderman said.
Alcorn State was inferior competition, but the measurables were impressive. Alderman sat in the low 90s with his fastball and topped out at 94 MPH. The 6-foot-3, 250-pounder threw a couple hard sliders and one changeup.
The Rebels are in the middle of a five-game week, so any inning that doesn’t tax the pitching staff is much needed. Alderman’s obvious talent made it a sudden storyline.
Ryan Olenek had an excellent career as a position player from 2016-2019, and like Alderman, came in as a pitcher and a hitter. Out of necessity, Olenek threw pitched against Tennessee Tech in the 2018 regional and a year later had seven appearances including four in SEC games.
Bianco didn’t close the book on Alderman being a pitching possibility moving forward.
“Obviously, that might be a part that we're going to need here as time goes on,” Bianco said.
