Ole Miss is one of 10 SEC baseball programs to get a gift this season.
Missouri is on the schedule for 66 percent of the league, and the Rebels get the opportunity to open that present this weekend in Columbia -- a prime chance to pick up valuable road wins in the nation's deepest and. best conference.
The Tigers lost three in Baton Rouge to open league play and have non-conference losses to Penn State, Alabama A&M Evansville x 2 and Binghamton x 2. Missouri is the lone exception in this baseball-obsessed SEC, and I was told recently it's the only league team without a seven-figure NIL program for baseball.
Missouri won't go 0-30. The Tigers have some talent. They almost beat LSU on Saturday and could have won on Friday. Relatively awful doesn't mean a gimme or a guarantee.
Ole Miss (15-5) needs to execute to make it what it should be this weekend, and that means avoiding the pitfalls that plagued the Rebels during the 6-2 loss to Southern Miss in Pearl on Tuesday. Ole Miss has lost three straight games, all similar in how self-inflicted mistakes and poor fundamental baseball caused issues.
"You play better or you lose," Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said. "We vanished for innings offensively and didn't do the necessary things to win."
The Rebels have hit home runs at a greater clip than expected, and that's helped bolster the offense, but when the ball stays in the yard, Ole Miss gets bogged down because of fly balls. The Rebels had 12 fly outs on Tuesday, leading to 3-for-13 with runners on and 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
Mitchell Sanford hit a triple in both of his first two-bats, and Isaac Humphrey later doubled, but overall the Rebels couldn't scratch and didn't walk until the eighth inning despite USM only having 58 percent strikes through seven frames.
Campbell Smithwick had two hits. He led the Rebels in batting average during SEC play a year ago. HIs re-emergence would be a huge boon for Ole Miss.
Judd Utermark went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts for the second time in the last three games, and Ole Miss has stranded the bases loaded four times in the last two games.
Ole Miss struck out 14 Golden Eagles, but Southern was 5-for-13 with runners on base. The Rebels committed just one error, and it didn't lead to an unearned run. Ole Miss needs clean sheets though because it simply doesn't have the margin to make routine mistakes and win games.
Freshman starter Cade Townsend flashed some impressive stuff with his obvious high ceiling, and he worked around two early runs that came on a bad-luck bouncing double and a leadoff walk.
Gunnar Dennis struggled in his second relief inning, giving up a walk, hit and a home run before another walk. Will McCausland inherited one runner who scored on a two-out double.
Ole Miss has been ahead or within striking distance in four of its five losses this season when the starter exited the game. The bullpen has been inconsistent, especially in middle relief, causing guaranteed quality options to be few and far between.
The Rebels have to bridge in today's baseball because starters don't routinely go deeper than five or six innings. Mason Morris has the body of work to believe in his multi-inning efforts, but it's mostly scattershot beyond that.
"Enough blame to go around," Bianco said. "We’ve done it three games in a row where we can’t get off the field and give up the crooked number in the middle of the game. We have to be better. We have to, as a staff, figure out who those guys are and pitch other guys."
Walker Hooks bounced back from his lone poor outing of the season with a perfect inning against Southern Miss. Hudson Calhoun had a horrific showing versus South Alabama but hasn't allowed a run in three of his four appearances including three strikeouts in his one inning on Tuesday. Perhaps those are two pitchers who can key improvement.
Ole Miss is better than Missouri, and the Rebels were one out from taking the series from Arkansas. Their baseline is good enough to win games when they don't help opponents. But, too often lately, there have been charity and more than a few missed chances.
A midweek loss to Southern Miss doesn't matter in the big picture. The way it happened absolutely does if Ole Miss repeats it. Another black and gold opponent awaits.
The Rebels need to be the rule against the Tigers, not the exception.
"Not hitting the panic button, but it's time to go," Sanford said.
