Rebels even the series with the Dirtbags behind Feigl's resilient night

LONG BEACH | There was a moment in the fourth inning when Brady Feigl talked to himself.

He’d just hit Antonio Torres with a pitch, and the bases were loaded with no one out. The what-was-once-sleepy Blair Field crowd had come alive, and Ole Miss’ three-run lead was diminished to one with plenty of opportunity for it to become a deficit.

“Under the bat, not by the bat,” Feigl said about his advice to himself. “I know it sounds like stupid and self-explanatory but you have their fans screaming in your ear and all you want to do is throw harder and make a better pitch.”

The situation was more unlucky than Feigl’s fault to that point, but he got the three outs needed with two batters faced, giving up one more run but previewing a lead change. The Rebels pushed one across the next half inning, and it held up for Ole Miss (9-1) to take the second game of the doubleheader, 4-3, setting up a rubber match with the Dirtbags (4-7) at 11:30 a.m. (PT) on Sunday.

[Related: Dirtbags hand Rebs first loss]

“Besides the win and bouncing back after a poor effort I’m proud of him — in the fourth inning — the way he hung in there,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “You look up at one point and he had given up two and he had bases loaded and no outs and gets through it. We score the next inning and he pitched well.”

Chris Jimenez blooped a single just inside the right field foul line to being the inning on a 1-2 count, and Brooks Stotler rolled one close to the same location a batter later on a 2-2 pitch. Feigl thought he had a double play opportunity when Tristan Mercadel hit a ground ball toward Grae Kessinger at short, but it was a few steps toward the hole and skipped off Kessinger’s glove.

A bunt, then, went for a single, as Cooper Johnson fell down fielding it in front of home plate. Four well-placed balls had Feigl in all sorts of trouble, but after the hit by pitch he got a week fielder’s choice ground out, and picked the runner off first base.

A batter later he struck out Santino Rivera following three foul balls to end the inning.

“It’s going to happen where they get a chink hit and put one down the line and put it together,” Feigl said. “That’s when the assault comes and you have to handle the assault. You have to weather it and minimize the damage. I felt like I did that.”

Feigl didn’t allow another run through his 7.1 inning appearance — the second longest outing of his career. He struck out six and walked the one batter — the last one he faced on the night — giving him 24 strikeouts and just three walks in 19.1 innings on the season.

Since Ole Miss had lost the opener it was the first team-wide adversity Feigl had been saddled with this season. He said it was in the back of his mind during pregame but didn’t become a thought while he was on the mound.

The Rebels staked him to an early lead with three runs in the first three innings. Will Goslan started the second with a double, and an error, a wild pitch and a Tim Elko RBI ground out produced two runs.

Nick Fortes hit a line drive solo shot out of Blair Field in the third inning, and Grae Kessinger had an RBI groundout in the fifth for the eventual winning run. Jacob Adams had singled to start the inning, moved to third on a stolen base and wild pitch, setting up Kessinger’s right-side roller.

Ole Miss took advantage of those Long Beach miscues, but it was a frustrating day offensively. The Rebels were 1-of-19 with runners in scoring position and 2-of-30 with runners on base in the two games combined. In the nightcap, those numbers were 0-for-11 and 0-for-16, respectively.

Cooper Johnson, Grae Kessinger and Thomas Dillard — sophomores who have given the Rebels’ lineup pop in the early weeks — were a combined 0-for-23 in the two games. Ryan Olenek had three doubles but didn’t factor into any of the runs scored.

Zak Baayoun, who beat top-10 TCU last week, gave up four runs, three earned, in six innings.

“He was really good, and we had to piece things together against him,” Fortes said.