Parham: Rebels harnessing a special intangible as resume builds

The following is something many of you have either said or had said to you during this baseball season.

“Last year’s team wouldn’t have [insert rest of sentence].”

The most common predicates have been “won this game” or “come back after that happened.” With 2017 still somewhat fresh in fans’ minds, it’s logical and understandable that this group of Rebels are compared to the previous edition.

But as the halfway point of the season is reached within the next week, it’s time to stop comparing the current model to its less successful lemon. There’s plenty the 2017 team didn’t do with its season. But that’s in the past, and it’s time we all let it go.

Ole Miss is No. 5 nationally and 22-3 overall with a 4-2 SEC record after two conference weekends. The Rebels used a 7-6 win over No. 12 Texas A&M Saturday to take the series in College Station, beating a quality opponent in a tough, weird environment as all three games were decided by one run.

A friend sent me a text minutes after Parker Caracci picked up his second save of the series, and I agreed with it to the point that I repeated it to someone later in the day. The text simply said, “Ole Miss is playing like LSU.”

I knew what it meant, and it had nothing to do with this year’s Tigers. All signs point to Ole Miss simply being better than LSU in 2018. The message was about a toughness, an aura, an it that has been synonymous with LSU for much of the past several decades. You know what I mean because the Rebels have been on the other end of it at times.

Late innings can get strange and a little bit of momentum becomes a boulder rolling down a mountain when LSU is on the field. Games never seem over, and doubt creeps into opponents after any misstep.

For a weekend in College Station and for much of the 25-game schedule that’s been played, Ole Miss has harnessed much of that same positive energy. With a pitching staff that leads the nation in strikeout-to-walk ratio and an offense that has more power than expected, Ole Miss keeps coming and typically doesn’t allow opponents from stretching leads and separating the score.

The Rebels outscored Texas A&M 10-3 collectively over the final three innings of each game of the series. Four straight singles (against a pitcher who hadn’t allowed an earned run in 18.1 innings) and dominant relief work turned Thursday from a 4-1 deficit to a 5-4 win.

Michael Fitzsimmons, who had eight at-bats all season, hit a pinch hit grand slam Friday to cut a five-run deficit to one, and Ole Miss put the tying run in scoring position in the ninth inning. Then, on Saturday, the Rebels overcame three different deficits and their starter getting pulled after 1.1 innings.

Ole Miss has shown a knack for exploiting weaknesses and pressuring teams into imploding at the shakiest spot. The Aggies really hit and have an upper-tier rotation, so Ole Miss had to survive those segments of the game. However, the Rebels cratered a shoddy TAMU bullpen and took advantage of poor Aggie fielding.

While fielding percentages in college baseball aren’t extremely reliable because of inconsistent scoring, Texas A&M’s 12 spot in the SEC in fielding is accurate and important. The Aggies throw and kick it around a good bit, so Ole Miss striking out only four times Saturday gave ample chances for mistakes. The costly one came in the fifth when two outs and no one on turned into two Ole Miss runs after TAMU made a fielding error and a throwing error.

The Rebels are 6-2 in one-run games because of the bullpen and the focus to maintain competitive at-bats in late innings.

There are eight weeks left in the regular season, and plenty of work remains. Ole Miss will wake up Monday likely with a No. 4 next to its name, as Arkansas or Florida will lose a series and let the Rebels move up a spot in most top 25s.

An important week looms with Southern Miss Tuesday and then those talented and powerful Razorbacks come to Oxford for a three-game set Thursday to Saturday. Arkansas hit 13 home runs during the sweep of Kentucky last weekend.

But through nearly six weeks and a key nationally-notable series at Blue Bell Park, Ole Miss has shown the tangibles to make a serious push toward special things this season. But nearly as important, the Rebels are also riding a heavy dose of that intangible.

The one that opponents recognize when games tighten and late innings have drama. Call it scrappy or gritty or tough. Call it what you want. But whatever you call it, winners are the ones who harness it. And that’s been the Rebels much more often than not.