Friday brought ninth inning heartache, and then Saturday brought a beatdown in Oxford as No. 6 Mississippi State stomped No. 18 Ole Miss 6-1.
It all sets up a Sunday series finale with Ole Miss looking for literally anything positive to hang its hat on for the week. The Rebels (19-9, 3-5 SEC) are now on a three game losing streak while its hated rival MSU (23-4, 5-2 SEC) is riding a seven game win streak.
The offensive struggles for Ole Miss has to give at some point. Slumps don’t last forever, so maybe
Sunday is the day the lineup breaks out of this terrible stretch and hangs a double digit on the board. I wouldn’t bet my mortgage on that, but its college baseball so anything is possible.
Ole Miss will send Cade Townsend in to start at 3 p.m. CT first pitch broadcast live on SEC Network. Townsend had a little scare with some shoulder soreness earlier this month, but an MRI revealed no damage to his throwing arm. It will be his first start since that shortened outing against Texas on March 14, and I would expect it will be a short leash and pitch count for him.
Duke Stone is the expected starting pitcher for MSU, and in his last two SEC starts, he proved fairly capable on the road against Arkansas (4.2 IP, 3 ER, 9 K’s) and home against Vanderbilt (4 IP, 3 ER, 4 K’s). On Saturday, the Rebels were held scoreless by starting pitching for the first five innings while facing a barrage of runs it could not come back from, so an early run or two could build some confidence again for this team.
Win number 20 seems to be pretty damn elusive right now for Ole Miss, and while it is always a good feeling to get a win, right now I think fans have to be concerned how this team is performing against the top 10 programs in the country with such an anemic offense.
While the team entered the weekend third in home runs in the SEC, it ranked last in strikeouts with a clear correlation to a lack of contact overall. This team is certainly not built for small ball and working baserunners around the diamond, but the bigger concern is it isn’t talented enough to slug its way through the conference.
So what will Mike Bianco do to change things up? At some point, Hayden Federico and Austin Fawley are going to start hitting, and the track record speaks to that, but Brayden Randle and Tate Sirmans just seem to have a hole in their swing that other teams have found. Will Topher Jones or Brett Moseley become more of a consistent option in the lineup for the time being? The time to tinker is now given the series is shot and there is a lot more baseball to be played.
