‘This is when it tests you’ | Ole Miss baseball must ‘figure it out’ with trip to No. 1 Arkansas coming up
OXFORD, Miss. — If the old adage “you are what the numbers say you are” is true, the Diamond Rebels have plenty of work to do after being swept at home by Kentucky this past weekend. Head coach Mike Bianco’s response was succinct Sunday when asked what his message was to the team after the loss.
“We’ve gotta figure it out,” he explained after Ole Miss was run-ruled in game three, 15-1.
“We talk about chemistry and leadership and all these different things ‒ this is when it tests you. When you’re awful and you play bad and you don’t feel good, can you stick together and can you continue to fight?”
Coach Mike Bianco
The Rebels, 18-11 overall and 3-6 in Southeastern Conference play, will have to continue to fight as a trip to No. 1 Arkansas comes this weekend.
Ole Miss has struggled at one time or another in pretty much all aspects of the game this season.
Rebel pitching gave up 37 runs to Kentucky (24-4, 8-1 SEC) in this series, including 17 and 15 against the Wildcats in games two and three.
Ole Miss currently ranks 13th in the SEC in team ERA (5.62). Only Florida (5.97) has a higher ERA than the Rebels. Ole Miss also leads the league in passed balls with 12. The next closest team is Kentucky with five.
Throughout the course of the three-game series vs. the Wildcats, Ole Miss starters managed to complete just nine innings on the mound — and that includes 5.2 innings pitched from starter Riley Maddox on Friday.
Liam Doyle made it 2.2 innings on Saturday in his start in game two, while Gunnar Dennis made it just 2/3 of the first inning Sunday.
“The games when we’ve had success, we’ve been able to attack the strike zone and get in good counts,” Bianco said after Sunday’s loss. “We didn’t do that today or yesterday.”
To make matters worse, the Rebels issued 20 walks in the 25 innings played this weekend against Kentucky, and that led to 10 runs that scored.
At the plate, Ole Miss is currently 11th in the league with a .278 batting average.
In the 5-3 loss to Kentucky Friday, Ole Miss was just 1-for-16 (.063) with runners on. They were 0-11 (.000) with runners in scoring position.
Coach Bianco acknowledged the difficulties the Rebels are facing.
“This tests everybody’s mettle. This is tough. We haven’t played well. There’s no excuses. That’s on me. That’s on the team. We have to be better to compete in this league and we haven’t.”
Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco
Defensively, Ole Miss is also struggling in the field. The Rebels are 14th — dead last in the league — with a .966 fielding percentage. In the 29 games played thus far this season, Coach Bianco’s team has recorded 34 errors, seven more than the next closest team, Alabama, who has committed 27.
How does this compare to the errors made last season? In the entirety of 2023, the Rebels committed a total of 38 errors across a 54-game season.
In the 5-3 loss to Kentucky in game one Friday, Ole Miss tallied three errors that led to three unearned Wildcat runs. On Saturday, they committed six errors.
After opening the season with a 2-1 series win over South Carolina at home, Ole Miss has just one win its last six games. Those six games — Tennessee in Knoxville and Kentucky — saw the opponents outscore the Rebels, 72-28.
Is there time to turn things around for this season? Of course, but the going is about to get tougher. Of the remaining seven series the Rebels play in conference, five of the opponents are ranked.
Ole Miss has 21 SEC games remaining in series at:
- at No. 1 Arkansas (April 4-6),
- vs. No. 23 Mississippi State (April 12-14)
- at Georgia (April 19-21)
- vs. No. 13 Alabama (April 26-28)
- at Auburn (May 3-5)
- No. 3 A&M (May 10-12)
- at No. 18 LSU (May 16-18)
There is certainly time for Ole Miss to right the ship, but the Rebels will need to play much better than they have thus far.
Coach Bianco talked about the remaining games after Sunday’s loss.
“A lot of opportunity. If you don’t play better than that, it’s not really gonna matter how many games you got left. But, if we can play like we have and like we’re capable of playing, there’s a lot of games left.”
Coach Bianco
Next Up
Ole Miss plays a midweek game against Memphis Tuesday with first pitch set for 6:00 p.m. The game is streaming on ESPN+.
Then, the Rebels travel for a Thursday-Friday-Saturday series against the No. 1-ranked Razorbacks who just swept LSU this past weekend. First pitch on Thursday is set for 6:00 p.m. CT and the game will be broadcast on SEC Network.
David Walker
David is the consummate true-freshman quarterback, first pioneering the position only a year after college freshmen were given varsity eligibility by the NCAA in 1972. In 1973, the left-handed all-state gunslinger from Sulphur, Louisiana started for the Texas A&M Aggies and earned the All-Southwest Conference Freshman of the Year award as selected by the league’s coaches. David is the first college quarterback ever awarded Freshman of the Year in the NCAA. He was only 17, and still holds the NCAA record as the youngest starting quarterback in college football history. He wore No. 8 at A&M in honor of one of his football heroes, Archie Manning.
In becoming the winningest quarterback ever at A&M, David was converted from a dual-threat QB to a triple option trailblazer. The two-time team captain led three record-breaking offenses that changed the direction of football at A&M forever, establishing once and for all the winning tradition that the Aggies had so-long desired.
As a high school head coach in Houston in the late ‘80s, David stationed his quarterback in the shotgun formation, having him reading defenses and throwing hot routes at a time when such offensive schemes were frowned upon by traditional fans and coaches. One of his quarterbacks tossed 57 passes in a single game, which stood as the all-time Greater Houston Area record for many years.
As you can tell from his bona fides, David is extremely qualified as our expert on all things Quarterback at Ole Miss. Enjoy his exclusive analysis only here at The Rebel Walk!
