Ole Miss arms routinely work out of trouble in fall split with Little Rock
OXFORD | There’s a certain actual-game feel to these fall scrimmages since a different team is in each dugout and the uniforms are not the same colors.
More fans are in the stands compared to an intrasquad, and there’s structure to the event including music, public address announcing and a scoreboard clicking toward a conclusion.
Those elements give a dress-rehearsal element that allows situational baseball to be of greater benefit. During 12 innings with Little Rock, that consisted of the Ole Miss pitchers succeeding with runners on base and finding ways out of less-than-advantageous scenarios for much of the day.
The Rebels beat the Trojans, 3-0, in the opening six innings, as three Ole Miss pitchers stranded seven runners thanks to four strikeouts and an errorless defense.
“Today the positive was the pitchers who made pitches to get off the field unscathed,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “The strikeouts and double plays were good, and we fought through a day we didn’t play that well.”
Will Ethridge, Houston Roth and junior college transfer Zack Phillips each tossed two scoreless innings in the first segment of the day.
Ethridge, who continues to flash an improved, sharp breaking ball into the 80s, gave up two hits and a hit by pitch but used a strikeout and pitches down in the zone to escape trouble.
“I was frustrated with myself when I was 0-2 on guys and gave up hits,” Ethridge said. “I was just happy to be out there and complacent with myself. I really locked in after that and made pitches. It was huge to get out of it.”
Roth walked two Little Rock hitters but had three strikeouts, and Phillips scattered two hits in his two innings.
In the second six-inning game, a 5-3 Little Rock victory, Gunnar Hoglund stranded two runners of his own before the streak fell in the ninth inning of the day. Doug Nikhazy allowed a two-out RBI single after the leadoff batter of the frame reached on a Tim Elko error at third base.
The earlier script picked back up the next inning, as Nikhazy wiggled out of a runners-on-corners jam with no outs. He fielded the bunt on a squeeze attempt and got the lead runner at the plate for the first out, and a hitter later, Anthony Servideo fielded a chopper up the middle and made a glove flip to Grae Kessinger, who caught it with his throwing hand and completed the turn for the inning-ending double play.
Another heralded freshman, Kaleb Hill, couldn’t replicate the success with runners on. With two outs in the penultimate inning, he gave up a three-run home run to Little Rock’s Troy Alexander. Little Rock got another run in the final inning of Parker Caracci, but Servideo and Kessinger turned another double play to end the inning.
Ole Miss struggled for the overwhelming majority of the afternoon, going eight straight frames without a run at one point and scored only once in middle 10 innings — a Cole Zabowski RBI single.
The Rebels scored three runs in the first inning of the day on four hits but only had four hits from then until Zabowski hit a two-run home run to cut it to 5-3 in the second segment and take the overall score 6-5. The Rebels got the go-ahead run to the plate with two outs in the 12th prior to a Cooper Johnson fly out.