Ryan Rolison finds his fastball form to give Rebels much-needed split

STARKVILLE | There was a moment early in game two of Saturday’s teeth-chattering doubleheader when Mississippi State seemed poised to repeat its out-of-nowhere performance from the opening game of the day.

Ole Miss led by two runs, but the Bulldogs loaded the bases on some offense and some Rebel miscues which had become a theme for the afternoon. Ryan Rolison, in his first start away from a series opener, had walked a batter and hit a batter to set up the bad situation and was in danger of becoming a close resemblance to Brady Feigl, who was on the mound for all the mishaps earlier.

But instead of the Bulldogs getting a big inning to spur ahead for a result similar to game one’s 13-3 MSU win, Ryan Rolison got ahead of two straight batters and combined a strikeout and weak ground out to escape the frame.

Less than an hour later, Ole Miss put up its third multi-run inning of the game and coasted for a 6-1 win that evened the series and put a positive note on what could have been a disaster at Dude Noble.

"We needed that kind of effort," Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said. "He was sharp and it was the sharpest he’s been in some time. What Ryan has lacked is what you saw here in the few innings where they put pressure on him he was able to make pitches and get off the field. The weeks preceding this he wasn’t able to make that pitch."

Rolison threw 104 pitches — 70 strikes — and struck out nine with two walks and six hits over seven innings. He escaped that second inning and then gave up back-to-back doubles to start the third inning. Two straight strikeouts followed a groundout to limit the damage to the only run he gave up during the outing.

During those two innings when MSU sent a batter to the plate with multiple runners on and fewer than two outs, Rolison got ahead of all following hitters except Hunter Vansau, and the sophomore struck out Vansau on a full count pitch.

The Rebels (27-5, 7-4) have won three straight finales to decide series and will need to do so again when the two teams meet at 1 p.m. Sunday.

"We needed a big start after not a very good first game," Rolison said. "We needed to bounce back and it shows a lot about our team."

It was a quality pick-me-up after Rolison gave up nine hits and five runs in 5.1 innings against Arkansas last week. Coming into today, he'd allowed 10 earned runs in 16 SEC innings, and league opponents were hitting .309 against him.

Bianco said earlier in the week that he flipped Rolison and Feigl in the rotation because of what Feigl was doing more than what Rolison lacked. However, the change didn’t go as planned, as an ugly effort by Ole Miss was compounded by Feigl giving up five hits, two walks, a hit by pitch and uncorking three wild pitches in 2.1 innings.

"We didn't help ourselves in any sort of way, and they hit," Bianco said. "Eight runs in an inning, and we couldn't get off the field, and it wasn't just Brady... I was really disappointed in game one for how we played. It's not like we didn't try to win, but the execution was bad in all three phases.

"You couldn't print (what was said between games)."

After Nick Fortes gave the Rebels an early 2-0 lead with a first inning home run, his seventh of the season, the Bulldogs scored one in each of the first two innings and then put together a 45-minute half inning that featured eight runs for a 10-2 lead. The inning started with a hit by pitch, walk, hit and an error, and then four more hits followed along with more sloppiness from the visitors.

Ole Miss committed three errors in the game as a catalyst to Mississippi State’s best offensive outing in the SEC this season. The Bulldogs had scored only 17 combined runs in the nine previous SEC games and only 13 combined runs in the seven series openers this year.

But Rolison silenced the Bulldogs who suddenly had some offensive momentum. The Jackson, Tennessee, native rocketed up prospect lists in the Cape League because of his ability to work the low-to-ocassionally-mid-90s fastball to both sides of the plate and especially to his glove side. That's lacked in recent starts, as he didn't walk many people, but he couldn't command his pitches to spots and make quality pitches. Instead he got too much of the plate.

Rolison's strikeout-to-walk ratio in SEC play was more than 3-to-1 before today, but the command to the inner-half on right-handers returned to create a different profile. He hit the groove around the end of the third inning and carried it the rest of his start.

"I kind of found a rhythm with my fastball and was able to get ahead of hitters and force early contact," Rolison said. "It was the plan coming in and got some early outs and save my pitch count and get deep in the game."

It was an ace effort on a frigid and misty 45 minutes after Ole Miss, which entered with the SEC West lead, was blown out on the road by the division's last place team. But instead of struggling with early deficits and early command of his outing, Rolison made the pitches, erased the threats, and let his offense chip away for six runs through five innings while making Mississippi State throw 176 pitches to get 21 outs.

Ole Miss hands the ball to James McArthur Sunday searching for its fourth straight series win to open conference play. Had Rolison not returned to some semblance of a past form, the Rebels may have been searching for a whole lot more.