Rebs confident as retooled Tulane pitching staff arrives in Oxford

OXFORD | Nick Fortes had been waiting — with varying degrees of patience — for the game to get his season going.

It was only one weekend, but arguably the Rebels’ best hitter didn’t supply much damage during No. 9 Ole Miss’ sweep of Winthrop. He had a hit in every game, scored a couple runs and laced a double on Saturday, but he ended the series without an RBI — a sore spot for the prime candidate to be the danger spot in the lineup for opposing pitchers.

Then, on Tuesday, he broke out. Fortes hit home runs in his first two at-bats and had six RBIs in the game, the first Rebel to do so since he also had six against ULM last May. It was a welcome sight and a good breath of productivity, as Ole Miss heads into a home weekend set with undefeated Tulane (3-0).

“It’s nice because (Fortes) was getting good swings off, but he wasn’t getting good results,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. “He hit a lot of balls on the weekend with the wind blowing in and cold nights and not a lot to show for it.”

[Related: Sophomores swing well opening weekend]

The midweek surge gives the junior a 1.202 OPS through the first week, and he’s struck out just twice in 16 at-bats. The Rebels as a team have at least 12 hits in three of the four games played — with Sunday’s three-hit effort the current outlier.

Still answering questions about last season’s offensive struggles, Ole Miss has seven regulars hitting over .300, and catcher Cooper Johnson has two hits in seven at-bats and more importantly hasn’t struck out this season. The Rebels are hitting .326 as a team, and two of the four starters faced so far were likely SEC roster quality.

Proven commodities Will Golsan (.133 batting average, (.411 OPS) and Ryan Olenek (.250 BA, .500 OPS) are off to slow starts in the extreme early-going, but their issues haven’t been outwardly noticeable because of a balanced lineup.

“I know everybody talks about last season but we think we have a good offense and we’ve done it with a lot of different people,” Bianco said. “It hasn’t just been the same guys every night.”

Tulane brings in a retooled pitching staff that was an extreme liability in former Vanderbilt assistant Travis Jewett’s first year as head coach. The Green Wave finished 27-31 and had a 5.72 team ERA. Tulane walked nearly 5.5 batters per game, hit a batter a game and gave up almost three extra base hits per game.

In the sweep of Horizon favorite Wright State, the Wave gave up a competent 13 runs during three games but were still free pass happy, yielding 16 walks and six hit batters in 28 innings. Tulane used 12 different pitchers.

"There's room for improvement for sure, but for the most part guy guys were coming in there and doing their thing," Jewett said to the Advocate. "We had certain guys where maybe it wasn't going as well as we'd like, and they'd make a good pitch or get a double-play ball.”

Two of the Tulane starters will be the same as last week, but Jewett is inserting left-hander Ross Massey into the Saturday role. Massey threw three shutout relief innings against the Raiders to pick up a win.

The hope for Jewett is it’s a reclamation season for Massey, who had a 9.68 ERA in 35.1 innings last season — after a 2016 season when he had a 2.29 ERA in 18 appearances and 12 starts, throwing 90.1 innings. He allowed one run in eight innings against Utah in the Oxford Regional two seasons ago.

"That's just what we wanted to see out of him," Jewett said after his three-inning shutout of Wright State. "That's what he had been working so hard to get to. He just looked good out there. He had a confidence and aura. I think he was back to his old self."

Tulane: RHP Kaleb Roper, Jr. 0-0, 1.80 ERA, 1 APP, 1 GS, 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 K, 1 BB

Ole Miss: LHP Ryan Rolison, So. 1-0, 0.00 ERA, 1 APP, 1 GS, 5 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 12 K, 2 BB

Tulane: LHP Ross Massey, Jr. 1-0, 0.0 ERA, 1 APP, 0 GS, 3 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 2 K, 1 BB

Ole Miss: RHP Brady Feigl, Jr. 1-0, 0.00 ERA, 1 APP, 1 GS, 6 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 6 K, 1 BB

Tulane: RHP Keegan Gillies, So. 0-0, 7.71 ERA, 1 APP, 1 GS, 4.2 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 1 K, 3 BB

Ole Miss: RHP James McArthur, Jr. 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 1 APP, 1 GS, 5 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 7 K, 3 BB