Ole Miss fell to Arkansas twice in three games over the weekend, snapping a four-series winning streak against the Razorbacks in Oxford.
The Rebels (24-8, 8-4) didn’t pitch well enough to win the finale, losing 18-14 thanks to 17 walks. The offense tried to keep up, erasing an 11-run deficit and giving Ole Miss some hope in the first weekend without senior captain Tim Elko, who tore his ACL a week ago.
Elko led the SEC in RBIs and Ole Miss in doubles, home runs and total bases at the time of his injury. And the lineup is a work in progress as a result.
On the surface, there was little falloff, as Ole Miss put up 30 runs and 46 hits in the three games against the Razorbacks (26-5, 9-3). The Rebels had at least 14 hits in all three games and scored double digit runs twice. Ole Miss had 32 hits (27 singles) during the Saturday doubleheader.
The top of the order is always going to need to be the primary catalysts in any lineup, but the first five hitters for Ole Miss all had terrific weekends and carried the Rebels.
“We had a good week offensively, but Tim will be missed every day he’s not in there,” Mike Bianco said.
The bottom half showed better in games two and three, leading to the additional run support. In game one, Ole Miss scored just three runs despite 19 base runners because the bottom four in the order went 2-for-15 with nine strikeouts.
The top five in the order — Jacob Gonzalez, Peyton Chatagnier, Kevin Graham, Hayden Dunhurst and Justin Bench — combined to go 31 for 72 offensively, which is a .431 average. That won’t happen each week, so Ole Miss needs to be as sustainable as possible with the other four spots.
TJ McCants is going to play, and he had five hits on the weekend including a three-hit game.
The wild card here is Hayden Leatherwood. He’s struggled for a good bit of the season, but had a pinch-hit single in game one and then two hits in each of the next two games, including a three-run home run that extended the lead to five runs in Saturday’s nightcap. Saturday was his first two-hit game of the season that didn’t come against a SWAC opponent.
“We need him,” Bianco said of Leatherwood. “We need him. There are some guys, without naming names, who haven’t gotten off to the start that they would want or we would want. You can’t replace (Elko) who hits .350 with 10 home runs, but we need bits and pieces from a guy like Leatherwood who is capable but just hasn’t done it. We saw some of that these days.”
Leatherwood is hitting .150 with a. .611 OPS against lefties, but it’s only 20 at-bats. In 31 SEC at-bats, Leatherwood is hitting .323 with a .916 OPS.
Calvin Harris may be an option at first base. He is at the end of his throwing program and can’t play defensively in the outfield or at catcher, but he’s cleared for first base. He’s only hitting .167, but he’s struck out just seven times in 36 at-bats, compared to Cael Baker’s 22 in 44 at-bats and Trey LaFleur’s 17 in 29 at-bats.
Other right-handed options are John Rhys Plumlee and Ben Van Cleve.
Plumlee’s .921 OPS is fifth on the team though it’s only 27 at-bats. He also provides the Rebels with some speed in a lineup that can’t be as dependent on the home run. He’s struck out 10 times with eight walks and two hit by pitches. More time for him would likely require Graham to shift to first base, which is his lesser defensive position, but it’s not a noticeable decrease there compared to Baker.
Van Cleve is hitting .231 and only slugging .277 in 65 at-bats. His .329 on-base percentage is 14th out of 16 offensive players — ahead of Harris and LaFleur. He’s hitting .174 in 23 SEC at-bats.
Ole Miss has six seemingly set spots in the lineup and three that can be won with quality at-bats and moving the order along — two if Leatherwood can continue to provide the all-around offensive that is more his game than some of the other options right now.
Elko’s absence takes the best run-producer out of the lineup and adds an unknown toward the bottom of the order. There are options, and Bianco’s major task is finding the right combination of offense, defense and running productivity to get back to the top of the lineup.
And the contributions need to resemble the last two games. Those first five have to carry the Rebels, but they can’t be counted on to duplicate those numbers.
