Xavier Rivas showed resiliency, competitiveness and success on Thursday at Alabama.

He may have also spotlighted a puzzle piece in making Ole Miss’ disaster of a season an anomaly — getting Rivas back for 2024.

Alabama beat Ole Miss, 4-1, in a listless series opener. The two teams meet at 6 p.m. on Friday, and the Rebels have two games remaining in their season that now sits at 25-27 overall and 6-22 in the SEC. It’s the first time with a non-winning record since 1997 and also the same year was the last time Ole Miss won single-digit conference games.

The summer will be full of transfer portal, draft and attrition talk, as the Rebels have to improve their roster and fix the inadequacies that plagued this team. The portal opens at the end of the month, and the Major League Baseball Draft is July 9-11.

New players will emerge and make decisions around those dates, but in the meantime, Ole Miss can get started securing current players who would be beneficial next season. Whether Rivas is comfortable as is and ready for his senior season or he needs a little NIL to sweeten the deal, it’s worth doing.

Rivals, who just finished his first season at the Division I level, struck out 12 Crimson Tide batters and was the first Ole Miss pitcher this season to last seven innings. He yielded five base runners in the first inning but held it to two runs.

Alabama added single runs in the third and the fourth before Rivas put up three straight zeroes and threw 119 pitches in an effort to let the Rebels get back into it. Offensively, that never happened.

The left-hander went through some transitional issues that are common when elevating to the SEC, and he was thrust into a Friday night role that wasn’t his best fit.

He finishes with a 6.35 ERA, but he has multiple pitches that play and a second-year can easily project into major improvement as he trusts his arsenal and gets more comfortable with the level.

"I think he’s going to end up in the top five or better (in league strikeouts)," Mike Bianco said. "He has a swing-and-miss breaking ball. The fastball has plenty of velo, low-90’s but it’s sneaky fast and ride to it. But the command, he walks too many people, puts himself in too many tough spots."

Rivas makes sense -- at a minimum -- on the back end of the rotation next season, especially in this new era of SEC baseball. Aces aren't routinely throwing seven or eight innings and dominating lineups all the way through three times. It’s about depth and accumulating as many pitchers as possible who can get outs.

Rivas entered the week 10th in the SEC in innings pitched, and that should move up a couple spots after his seven innings in Tuscaloosa. LSU's Paul Skenes is the only SEC pitcher to average six innings per start this season. Only eight pitchers average five or more innings per start.

Rivas, prior to last night, was seventh in the SEC in strikeouts. He’s now at 89 on the season. He’s fourth in strikeouts in SEC games. He went at least five innings in six of 10 league starts and under four innings just once.

Ole Miss can’t do anything about losing Jacob Gonzalez or Kemp Alderman or Calvin Harris. Professional teams are going to pluck them. Hunter Elliott’s elbow recovery will progresses on a timeline that can’t be manipulated.

The Rebels need reinforcements and new additions that excel and are consistent in the SEC. It needs to be a fruitful incoming signing class and an active portal period that results in a handful of successful transfers.

They also need to identify who can help and who can’t on the current roster. Rivas should be one of the top priorities there. A year ago, Ole Miss likely could have kept Florida transfer Nick Pogue from signing a Minor League free agent contract by tossing over some Grove Collective dollars.

If it’s needed, Rivas would be worth the same thing. He’s not a considerable draft prospect, but teams could have interest. He needs to improve command and limit walks. His command is the reason for the elevated ERA.

The foundation is there, though, and he needs to be a foundation for the Rebels in this rebuild.