Top 25 baseball in the Magnolia State comes to a neutral site game between No. 25 Ole Miss and No. 22 Southern Miss at Trustmark Park on Tuesday.
Ole Miss (26-11, 8-7 SEC) is riding a five game winning streak coming off a sweep of LSU in Oxford, and albeit it was a huge momentum boost for this team and fanbase. Southern Miss (25-11, 8-7 SBC) has stumbled a bit from its lofty perch earlier this season when it walked off the Rebels in Hattiesburg roughly one month ago. At that time, the Mustard Buzzards
were the top RPI team in the nation and had wins over both in-state SEC programs.
Things have cooled a bit for USM with series losses to Arkansas State and Louisiana Lafayette most recently, and the team is on a two game losing streak entering Tuesday night. Nothing like a trip to Pearl, Miss. for a big non-conference showdown with a little revenge factor thrown in and not to mention maybe a little early Mother’s Day shopping at the Bass Pro Shops for all the folks from Forrest County.
PROJECTED PITCHING MATCHUP
- Ole Miss: RHP JP Robertson (2-1, 3.71 ERA)
- Southern Miss: LHP Bruce Littleton (1-0, 1.04 ERA)
The last time these two teams played it was a pitchers duel with the final 2-1 score going in favor of USM. There’s no way anyone in the Ole Miss dugout has forgotten that outcome and wants to get a little payback, but USM coach Christian Ostrander hasn’t won 90 games in two and a half seasons by being terrible at his job. Choosing Bruce Littleton as the starter should give the Ole Miss lineup some challenge early on as he has not had a ton of outings and the ones he has have been an inning or less.
I’d go ahead and assume Littleton is going to go as deep into this game as he can, but its unlikely Ole Miss sees him for more than 3-4 innings as none of his appearances have gone more than a couple dozen or so pitches. Given this bullpen by committee situation, it won’t give the Rebel lineup much chance to get its timing down and likely stymie the bipolar offense Ole Miss has been trending toward.
JP Robertson pitched 1.1 innings against USM last time these teams met allowing the deciding run in the game and taking the loss for the Rebels. You’d like to think he will have a chip on his shoulder tonight and want to go put up a few zeroes to get this game started. Robertson’s longest outing of the season was 3.1 IP that were scoreless vs. Kentucky.
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. CT, and if you’re not there in person, you can only listen via the Ole Miss sports radio network with David Kellum on the call. Yes, in the year of our Lord 2026, this game is somehow not on a streaming service. Go buy some tickets, get a hot dog for the kids and enjoy a nice night at Trustmark.
