Grayson Saunier, in front of a hometown crowd, had his best outing of the season.
The true freshman, making his seventh start of the year but first in the midweek, allowed three hits and one run in five innings at Memphis. Saunier is from nearby Collierville High School.
The Rebels used his effort and runs in three of the first four innings to knock off the Tigers, 7-2, heading into a weekend home series with Arkansas. Ole Miss (17-11) has won eight straight in the series. Memphis is 16-14 on the season.
Mike Bianco gets his 871st win at Ole Miss, passing former LSU coach Skip Bertman for second all-time in SEC victories.
“He certainly was good and filled up the strike zone with a good slider,” Bianco said of Saunier. “Good fastballs, too, and proud of him. Don't always know what’ll happen with the local kid and sometimes that helps and sometimes that doesn’t, but he was as composed as I’ve seen him. He was ahead in the count.”
Saunier threw 40 strikes out of 64 pitches and struck out four with two walks. Memphis hit a solo home run in the third inning for its one run off the right-hander. Saunier stranded a runner at second in each of he first two innings.
“I competed and attacked, and that’s what they’ve wanted me to do,” Saunier said. “I really went after the strike zone and competed.”
Saunier was unavailable last weekend in College Station because of an illness. The outing ties his longest of the season. He also went five innings at Minnesota in the third week of the season.
Kemp Alderman went 2-for-3 with a double and three RBIs. Calvin Harris also had two hits and doubled. Jacob Gonzalez hit a double and scored twice. Harris and Ethan Groff scored twice, also.
Alderman has reached base in 23 straight games and has a 13-game hitting streak.
Ole Miss scored six of its seven runs with two outs.
Sam Tookoian threw two shutout innings in relief, and Cole Ketchum allowed three hits and a run in 1.2 innings. Brayden Jones got the final out with the batter he faced.
Memphis was 0-for-15 with runners on base and 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. Ole Miss left 10 on base.
The Tigers used nine pitchers.
