OXFORD | With Doug Nikhazy and Gunnar Hoglund on to professional baseball and two-thirds of the starting rotation undecided to this point, Ole Miss is turning to experience on opening day.
Junior Derek Diamond will start for the No. 5 Rebels in the season opener on February 18 against Charleston Southern. The right-hander has 17 career starts and is one of only two roster members to start a regular season SEC game — along with Drew McDaniel.
With the pandemic stopping the 2020 season after just four nonconference weekends, even third-year players only have one true season of experience, making Diamond’s work last season value to Mike Bianco. He was the Sunday starter each of the four weekend prior to the stoppage his freshman season.
“He didn’t get the benefit like Hoglund (in 2019) of getting the nose bloodied in the SEC and surviving and does it make you better,” Bianco said. “It makes some people better. Not everyone can be strong enough for that. But you look at Derek last year, games that didn’t go well, he was running out there for the first time. You learn from that.”
Diamond had a 5.26 ERA and 1.49 WHIP last season in 75 innings with 82 strikeouts and 32 walks. He was throwing in the mid-to-high 90s at times in 2021, but the velocity dwindled and some arm soreness appeared as the cumulative workload increased toward the summer.
Diamond started the openers in both the regional and super regional, allowing a run in 4.1 innings against Southeast Missouri and four runs in four innings at Arizona.
“Derek wants to always improve and get better,” Bianco said. “Unlike some guys at that age, it’s not just about velocity. He realizes he had the ability to run it in the upper 90s, but he wants to pitch. To be effective he has to locate his fastball and mix two breaking balls and changeup and defend the steal. He’s really mature.”
The two sports behind Diamond in the rotation are undecided. John Gaddis, Jack Washburn, Jack Dougherty, Brandon Johnson, Drew McDaniel and Dylan Delucia are all talked-about possibilities for weekend early-season starts.
Diamond admits he didn't locate his fastball effectively when he maxed it out, and he’s focused on technology to assist in what’s needed. Using Rapsodo, a pitching technology tool that analyzes what pitches work best but also how pitches work together, Diamond gave up the two-seam fastball for just the four-seam and his trying to maximize ride and spin.
Getting a lot of swing and miss at the lower velocity is still a work in progress, but he hopes it cuts down on walks and missed locations. He says he’s also learned from last season that he can’t rely on just one location.
“I asked for help from Taylor Broadway because he switched the same way, and he’s a righty and he saw a lot of improvement with it,” Diamond said. “In the fall I had two goals: throw the fastball more and make it more effective.
“I saw improvement and moved it around. My whole life I had thrown to the knees and when you’re in high school you hear “live low and live long” and it works against high school hitters, but you see against good SEC hitters that some of those guys really drop the head on the low pitch. You have to move it around.”
Ole Miss lacks the prospect star power in the rotation compared to the one-two punch last season with Nikhazy and Hoglund, but Bianco is giving Diamond a chance to eat innings and outs and handle the Friday role while leading a staff that is limited on experience.
The pitching staff may be more of a puzzle than a plug-and-play compared to most seasons under Bianco. But, for now, Diamond is first up and gets the chance to show his leadership and growth.
“You can tell he's the veteran,” catcher Hayden Dunhurst said. “It’s really our second year, but you see the way he preps and gets work done and he looks like a third year or fourth year guy. He’s ready for it, and I’m excited to see it.”
