Parham: Nine notes from the Ole Miss series win at Tulane

NEW ORLEANS | Ole Miss found some late offense and used an excellent bullpen effort to pick a road series series win at Tulane on Sunday, beating the Green Wave, 6-3, at Turchin Stadium for the quality weekend.

The Rebels erased a one-run deficit with two runs in the seventh and tacked on two runs in the eighth for the comfortable win. Ole Miss (4-2) returns home to face UT Martin on Tuesday at 4 p.m. before a weekend visit from Long Beach State.

Here are 9 thoughts and observations from the series winner.

1. It wasn’t always pretty, but Ole Miss accomplished the necessary point of the trip to uptown New Orleans: win the weekend. The Rebels outplayed the Wave on Friday and got better pitching on Sunday for the two wins. All in all, Ole Miss was two outs from a road series sweep against a decent club. Tulane isn’t terrific, but the rebuild is in the improving stages, and the offense is going to do well in the American. The bottom line is there are necessary improvements that must come fairly quickly, but this week was a success. February isn’t a beauty contest.

2. A day after no one could get an out, Ole Miss held Tulane scoreless in eight of nine innings. Connor Green had the best performance of his career, stranding a pair of runners in the sixth inning. He entered with runners on the corners and one out with Tulane leading 3-2 at the time, and it took Green only two pitches to coax a short pop up and a ground ball. He also got two outs in the seventh after Ole Miss took the lead before giving the ball to freshman Kaleb Hill. It was the swing point of the game and excellent poise from a pitcher who hasn’t been in a lot of tight late-game situations.

3. Freshman Doug Nikhazy grabbed his first career save with a perfect ninth inning. The left-hander stuck out two and fired a fist pump toward his dugout following the last one that ended the game. He hasn’t allowed a run in 4.1 innings this season and has struck out eight without a walk. Moving forward he’s also shown the ability to bounce back. He pitched three times over a five-day span and stayed 89-91 MPH on his fastball, showing excellent late life and a nice cut to the fastball. He’s the most impressive newcomer after eight games.

4. Tyler Myers is the player we didn’t talk about enough in the preseason, but he’s likely to have a constant role this season with the Rebels. The junior college transfer was up to 92 MPH on Sunday, a day after throwing 30 pitches. He had excellent command with the fastball and breaking ball all through the preseason intrasquads, and that was another key today. He pitched a clean 1-2-3 eight inning that took any final air out of the stadium.

5. As much as the eye test failed it, the Ole Miss bullpen threw 4.2 innings without allowing an earned run on Friday and five innings on Sunday. Four different pitchers contributed to the eight straight batters retired to end the game on Sunday. Green and Kaleb Hill got one apiece, and then Myers and Nikhazy threw the uneventful full innings.

6. I talked to Tyler Keenan today about how much help it is having Thomas Dillard around him in the order. Dillard entered the game with a 2.088 OPS, a day after hitting two home runs, a double and having eight RBIs. Dillard was only 1-for-4 in the finale, but Keenan thought his presence helped him have a three-hit day with two RBIs.

7. Anthony Servideo played another stellar game in the outfield and was huge at the bottom of the order offensively. In the seventh inning he served a ball into right field to score pinch runner Josh Hall and tie game, and he read the throw back in correctly, reacting early enough to get to second base. That paid off, as Keenan scored him later in the inning. An inning later, he had a two-out single that scored a run and helped score another as Tulane threw the ball around. He was the only Rebel hitting 5-through-9 who had a hit.

8. Cooper Johnson was tremendous defensively all weekend. He blocked everything in sight, including a lot of breaking balls that were well off the plate. He managed the staff effectively and overall looked like the All-America defender most expect. While he had a quiet day at the plate, he did contribute with a perfect sacrifice bunt in the eighth inning. Johnson has been nearly perfect with his receiving.

9. Gunnar Hoglund gave up some hard-hit balls and had the three runs Tulane scored come across against him in the second inning. He allowed eight hits —- which is obviously too many — in four innings and threw 74 pitches. The silver lining is only one of the runs was earned and he steadied himself to strand multiple runners in the first and third innings. It has to get better, but it wasn’t all bad. He showed some toughness, escaping nine runners in four innings. He never had to spot his fastball well in high school, and that’s the crucial mistake now, as he falls behind in the count and gets too much of the plate in trying to get back in the matchup.