Ole Miss enters this weekend at 30-8 overall, but 8-7 in the SEC. I’m sure the overall is about they expected, but I have to think they’re a bit disappointed to be 8-7 at the halfway point of league play. The Rebels are a sterling 20-2 at home.
Ole Miss began the season with a three game sweep of Winthrop. Because they’re not playing football, Ole Miss then beat Memphis in the midweek and carded another weekend sweep, this time over Tulane. Ole Miss took a trip to the left coast where they split a pair of one run games at Long Beach State before easily winning the rubber game by a score of 12-1. Ole Miss concluded the “preseason” by sweeping our friends from Eastern Illinois, no strangers to an 0-3 weekend themselves.
Ole Miss played Georgia State in basketball this year, as I recall, and hosted Georgia State in baseball last year. They returned the favor with an odd mid week trip to DeKalb County, where the swept the Panthers on consecutive days.
One of the bigger individual game surprises of the first half of league play was Tennessee beating Ole Miss in Oxford on Friday night. Ole Miss came back and won the next two. Ole Miss then traveled to College Station and played an extremely close series with Texas A&M. All three games were decided by one run, with the Rebels winning that series to move to 4-2 in league play. The following weekend, Arkansas dealt Ole Miss their other home loss on Friday night, but the Rebels bounced back and won the next two, both one run games. Another one of the bigger individual game surprises from the first half took place the following weekend in Starkville, where Miss State, who has REALLY struggled this year and is squarely in the midst of a lost season, hammered Ole Miss 13-3 in the series opener. The Rebs bounced back later that day (Saturday DH) to win game two before dropping the rubber game in extras. Most recently, Ole Miss began their series in Nashville against Vanderbilt with a strong 11-3 win, but then got swept in a Sunday DH, a pair of 7 inning games, by 8-7 scores. Ole Miss is most recently off a 10-3 win over Arkansas State in the midweek.
It's tempting to say that they’ve played a tougher schedule than we have so far, in the league, but I don’t know that they have. Ole Miss has played both teams at the bottom of the SEC (Tennessee and Miss State) while we’ve played neither. We’ve both played Vanderbilt and Texas A&M. Arkansas is better than Kentucky, but top to bottom, I think our first five weekends have been a little tougher than theirs. Of course, we’re 9-6 and they’re 8-7…
Tonight, we’ll see sophomore lefty Ryan Rolison. He’s stocky kid from Jackson Tennessee. He’s already made 19 starts in his relatively young career, tonight will be #20. He’s off to a good start on the year at 5-3 in 9 appearances, all starts. He has a 3.27 ERA. His 52 1/3 innings leads their staff (by one out) and he has a solid 71/21 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .250 against him. Rolison was part of Ole Miss’s banner freshman class from a year ago. He was listed as the #51 overall prospect by D1Baseball coming out of high school. He’s draft eligible as a sophomore. He’s a four pitch pitcher who can reportedly really locate his fastball and he has a good curve. In the SEC, he’s 2-2, having started all five weekends, and has a 4.08 ERA. He has 39 strikeouts against 12 walks in 28 2/3 SEC innings (easily the tops on their staff) and league opponents are hitting .284 against him. This guy is good.
On Saturday, we’ll see a man named Brady Feigl. He’s a fourth year sophomore from Chesterfield Missouri, a big righty. He’s mainly been a bullpen guy during his Ole Miss tenure, but has become a regular in their rotation this season. On the season, he’s 6-2 with a 3.29 ERA in 9 appearances, all starts. He’s thrown 52 innings and has a 48/15 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .234 against him. In the SEC, he’s 2-2 in 5 starts and has a 5.61 ERA. He’s thrown 25 2/3 innings in the league with 23 K’s and 13 BB’s. SEC hitters are hitting .235 against him.
I kept thinking that name sounded more familiar than it should have. He didn’t start against us in Athens two years ago, so it wasn’t that… I did some digging, and it turns out the Braves had a guy in their system a few years ago, a left handed pitcher, also named Brady Feigl. What are the odds? That Feigl was also part of something of a controversy early in 2015. You may remember the Braves claiming Andrew McKirahan off of waivers late in spring training. That bumped Feigl down to AAA and his tore his UCL after one outing with Gwinnett and had Tommy John surgery. McKirahan was suspended for 80 games for PEDs a week or so later and I remember the rumors being that he (and the Marlins, who released him) knew of the pending suspension prior to his signing with the Braves. Because that Feigl was on the minor league roster when he hurt himself, he was stuck with the AAA salary that year instead of the big league salary. I never liked McKirahan after that. That Feigl has yet to appear in a major league after being so close in 2015.
Ole Miss’s Brady Feigl also missed the 2015 season (his first in Oxford) after Tommy John surgery. I mean, really, what are the odds of that?!
In game three, whenever it is played (I’m hoping for Sunday), we’ll see a great big junior righty named James McArthur. He’s a junior from New Braunfels Texas. McArthur is 4-0 in 9 appearances, all starts, and has a 3.40 ERA. He’s thrown 42 1/3 innings and has a 36/18 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .214 against him, but he has allowed a team high 7 HRs. Saturday will be his 34th start for the Rebels (I wonder how much longer Ole Miss will be allowed to have that mascot name). In the SEC, McArthur has started all 5 weekends, going 2-0 with a 4.98 ERA. He’s thrown 21 2/3 innings in conference and has a 17/10 K/BB. League opponents are hitting .218 against him.
Ole Miss’s closer is Parker Caracci, who has collected 5 saves in league play (6 overall) and sports a 2.16 ERA in conference. He’s thrown 16 2/3 innings in the conference and has a tremendous 24/3 K/BB. Caracci is a third year sophomore righty from Jackson Mississippi. Dallas Woolfork also has 6 saves for Ole Miss, but has only thrown 3 1/3 innings in league play over five appearances. Woolfork is a big junior righty. Greer Holston and Will Stokes appear to be a couple of A-relievers as well. Both are righties.
In league play, Ole Miss has a 4.90 ERA and .276 average against.
Offensively, the Rebs are paced by Ryan Olenek, who is having a great season at .403/.437/.542. He’s only K’d 10 times this year in 144 ABs and has drawn 6 walks. He has 2 HRs and 21 RBI. We should see him playing RF and batting 2nd. He’s been even better in league play, at .508/.524/.729 with 2 HRs and 11 RBI. Olenek is a lanky right handed hitting junior from Winter Park Florida.
Tyler Keenan is having a solid year as well. We should see the big freshman hitting in the middle and playing 3B. Keenan probably looks a little like Trevor Kieboom in uniform. On the season, he’s hitting .337/.439/.562 with 5 HRs and 20 RBI. He hasn’t slowed down in league play as he stands at .350/.471/.700. He has 4 HRs in SEC play so far.
The Rebels leading HR hitter is Thomas Dillard, who stands at 8. Dillard will play LF and probably hit cleanup, but his numbers are have really dipped in the SEC as compared to the overall. The same can’t be said for Cole Zabowski, a big left hand hitting sophomore 1B. Zabowski went to Collins Hill over in Gwinnett County. Overall, he’s .315/.383/.556 with 7 HRs and 24 RBI. In conference, he’s .346/.393/.635 with 4 HRs and 8 RBI. We should see him in the middle of their order as well.
As a team in league play, Ole Miss is hitting .305/.369/.475 and they’ve hit 17 HRs in their 15 league games. Ole Miss is fielding .976 in conference and .980 overall. On the season, they’re 39/56 in stolen bases (and with 18 successes in 30 attempts against them). They haven’t run a whole lot in the SEC as they are 12 for 16. SEC opponents are 11/16 against the Rebs.
Looking at league only stats, Ole Miss is #2 in batting average, #3 in slugging, #4 in OBP, #3 in runs scored, #3 in hits, #3 in RBI, #2 in doubles, #4 (tie) in HRs.. and has drawn the fewest number of walks in the SEC, but also struck out the fewest times. Only Florida and Auburn have fewer sac bunts, only Arkansas has more sac flies. These guys will swing the bats and they’ll put the ball in the play.
Pitching wise, in-league only, Ole Miss’s 4.90 ERA is 11th as is their batting average against. Their 140 K’s are tied for 4th in the conference (two fewer than us). Only Arkansas and Auburn have walked fewer SEC hitters than Ole Miss (50, as opposed to our 73). Their .976 fielding percentage in SEC play is #6, behind our league leading .983.
Last weekend, I thought that Kentucky was the best offensive team that we’d faced to that point. I think that Ole Miss is the best overall team that we’ve seen. This is going to be a tough weekend, especially out there with Ole Miss going 2-4 the last two weekends away from Oxford. This will be the first really hostile atmosphere we’ve played in this season.
We took the series from Ole Miss in 2011, and in winning that Saturday game, run our SEC win streak up to 7. That was a tremendous series and probably the best game that we played all season out there, that Saturday afternoon. So I’ve good memories of Oxford in that respect, but overall, we haven’t had a ton of success there. The Saturday loss in 2009 really seemed to break that group. We had a couple of heart breaking losses there in 2007 as I recall, and we did in 2005 as well. In 2014, Ole Miss just beat the hell out of us on Friday night…. I can’t remember the score, it seemed like 12-2, something like that. Just wasn’t a competitive game. Walking out of the stadium that night, I would have thought you were insane if you’d told me that on Sunday we’d be in extra innings of a rubber game. But that’s what happened. We won a highly entertaining game 2-0 the next day behind a CG from Robert Tyler…. For me, that was the best start of Tyler’s career. I know he was an out away from a no hitter against Alabama in 2016, but Ole Miss was better offensively, it was on the road, etc. We had our chances Sunday, but just couldn’t finish it off.
Mike Bianco is a good coach. I don’t think of him the way I think of Kevin O’Sullivan or Tim Corbin or Paul Maneri… or Dave Van Horn or Rob Childress for that matter. I remember thinking a few times during that series out there in 2014 that Bianco wasn’t a great in-game coach… maybe that’s unfair, but I don’t think that we’re going to get outsmarted this weekend. But, obviously, that’s not what it’s all about. Ole Miss is a very strong team…. They’re 8-4 this year in one run games (8-2 before last Sunday in Nashville), so you’d think they’re comfortable playing in close contests. I don’t think that Bianco is going to lose them anything, either.
Really interested to see how this one shakes out. For all the talk about what we need to do to get into a regional, where things stand now, etc, we’re going to find out a lot about ourselves this weekend…
Ole Miss began the season with a three game sweep of Winthrop. Because they’re not playing football, Ole Miss then beat Memphis in the midweek and carded another weekend sweep, this time over Tulane. Ole Miss took a trip to the left coast where they split a pair of one run games at Long Beach State before easily winning the rubber game by a score of 12-1. Ole Miss concluded the “preseason” by sweeping our friends from Eastern Illinois, no strangers to an 0-3 weekend themselves.
Ole Miss played Georgia State in basketball this year, as I recall, and hosted Georgia State in baseball last year. They returned the favor with an odd mid week trip to DeKalb County, where the swept the Panthers on consecutive days.
One of the bigger individual game surprises of the first half of league play was Tennessee beating Ole Miss in Oxford on Friday night. Ole Miss came back and won the next two. Ole Miss then traveled to College Station and played an extremely close series with Texas A&M. All three games were decided by one run, with the Rebels winning that series to move to 4-2 in league play. The following weekend, Arkansas dealt Ole Miss their other home loss on Friday night, but the Rebels bounced back and won the next two, both one run games. Another one of the bigger individual game surprises from the first half took place the following weekend in Starkville, where Miss State, who has REALLY struggled this year and is squarely in the midst of a lost season, hammered Ole Miss 13-3 in the series opener. The Rebs bounced back later that day (Saturday DH) to win game two before dropping the rubber game in extras. Most recently, Ole Miss began their series in Nashville against Vanderbilt with a strong 11-3 win, but then got swept in a Sunday DH, a pair of 7 inning games, by 8-7 scores. Ole Miss is most recently off a 10-3 win over Arkansas State in the midweek.
It's tempting to say that they’ve played a tougher schedule than we have so far, in the league, but I don’t know that they have. Ole Miss has played both teams at the bottom of the SEC (Tennessee and Miss State) while we’ve played neither. We’ve both played Vanderbilt and Texas A&M. Arkansas is better than Kentucky, but top to bottom, I think our first five weekends have been a little tougher than theirs. Of course, we’re 9-6 and they’re 8-7…
Tonight, we’ll see sophomore lefty Ryan Rolison. He’s stocky kid from Jackson Tennessee. He’s already made 19 starts in his relatively young career, tonight will be #20. He’s off to a good start on the year at 5-3 in 9 appearances, all starts. He has a 3.27 ERA. His 52 1/3 innings leads their staff (by one out) and he has a solid 71/21 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .250 against him. Rolison was part of Ole Miss’s banner freshman class from a year ago. He was listed as the #51 overall prospect by D1Baseball coming out of high school. He’s draft eligible as a sophomore. He’s a four pitch pitcher who can reportedly really locate his fastball and he has a good curve. In the SEC, he’s 2-2, having started all five weekends, and has a 4.08 ERA. He has 39 strikeouts against 12 walks in 28 2/3 SEC innings (easily the tops on their staff) and league opponents are hitting .284 against him. This guy is good.
On Saturday, we’ll see a man named Brady Feigl. He’s a fourth year sophomore from Chesterfield Missouri, a big righty. He’s mainly been a bullpen guy during his Ole Miss tenure, but has become a regular in their rotation this season. On the season, he’s 6-2 with a 3.29 ERA in 9 appearances, all starts. He’s thrown 52 innings and has a 48/15 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .234 against him. In the SEC, he’s 2-2 in 5 starts and has a 5.61 ERA. He’s thrown 25 2/3 innings in the league with 23 K’s and 13 BB’s. SEC hitters are hitting .235 against him.
I kept thinking that name sounded more familiar than it should have. He didn’t start against us in Athens two years ago, so it wasn’t that… I did some digging, and it turns out the Braves had a guy in their system a few years ago, a left handed pitcher, also named Brady Feigl. What are the odds? That Feigl was also part of something of a controversy early in 2015. You may remember the Braves claiming Andrew McKirahan off of waivers late in spring training. That bumped Feigl down to AAA and his tore his UCL after one outing with Gwinnett and had Tommy John surgery. McKirahan was suspended for 80 games for PEDs a week or so later and I remember the rumors being that he (and the Marlins, who released him) knew of the pending suspension prior to his signing with the Braves. Because that Feigl was on the minor league roster when he hurt himself, he was stuck with the AAA salary that year instead of the big league salary. I never liked McKirahan after that. That Feigl has yet to appear in a major league after being so close in 2015.
Ole Miss’s Brady Feigl also missed the 2015 season (his first in Oxford) after Tommy John surgery. I mean, really, what are the odds of that?!
In game three, whenever it is played (I’m hoping for Sunday), we’ll see a great big junior righty named James McArthur. He’s a junior from New Braunfels Texas. McArthur is 4-0 in 9 appearances, all starts, and has a 3.40 ERA. He’s thrown 42 1/3 innings and has a 36/18 K/BB. Opponents are hitting .214 against him, but he has allowed a team high 7 HRs. Saturday will be his 34th start for the Rebels (I wonder how much longer Ole Miss will be allowed to have that mascot name). In the SEC, McArthur has started all 5 weekends, going 2-0 with a 4.98 ERA. He’s thrown 21 2/3 innings in conference and has a 17/10 K/BB. League opponents are hitting .218 against him.
Ole Miss’s closer is Parker Caracci, who has collected 5 saves in league play (6 overall) and sports a 2.16 ERA in conference. He’s thrown 16 2/3 innings in the conference and has a tremendous 24/3 K/BB. Caracci is a third year sophomore righty from Jackson Mississippi. Dallas Woolfork also has 6 saves for Ole Miss, but has only thrown 3 1/3 innings in league play over five appearances. Woolfork is a big junior righty. Greer Holston and Will Stokes appear to be a couple of A-relievers as well. Both are righties.
In league play, Ole Miss has a 4.90 ERA and .276 average against.
Offensively, the Rebs are paced by Ryan Olenek, who is having a great season at .403/.437/.542. He’s only K’d 10 times this year in 144 ABs and has drawn 6 walks. He has 2 HRs and 21 RBI. We should see him playing RF and batting 2nd. He’s been even better in league play, at .508/.524/.729 with 2 HRs and 11 RBI. Olenek is a lanky right handed hitting junior from Winter Park Florida.
Tyler Keenan is having a solid year as well. We should see the big freshman hitting in the middle and playing 3B. Keenan probably looks a little like Trevor Kieboom in uniform. On the season, he’s hitting .337/.439/.562 with 5 HRs and 20 RBI. He hasn’t slowed down in league play as he stands at .350/.471/.700. He has 4 HRs in SEC play so far.
The Rebels leading HR hitter is Thomas Dillard, who stands at 8. Dillard will play LF and probably hit cleanup, but his numbers are have really dipped in the SEC as compared to the overall. The same can’t be said for Cole Zabowski, a big left hand hitting sophomore 1B. Zabowski went to Collins Hill over in Gwinnett County. Overall, he’s .315/.383/.556 with 7 HRs and 24 RBI. In conference, he’s .346/.393/.635 with 4 HRs and 8 RBI. We should see him in the middle of their order as well.
As a team in league play, Ole Miss is hitting .305/.369/.475 and they’ve hit 17 HRs in their 15 league games. Ole Miss is fielding .976 in conference and .980 overall. On the season, they’re 39/56 in stolen bases (and with 18 successes in 30 attempts against them). They haven’t run a whole lot in the SEC as they are 12 for 16. SEC opponents are 11/16 against the Rebs.
Looking at league only stats, Ole Miss is #2 in batting average, #3 in slugging, #4 in OBP, #3 in runs scored, #3 in hits, #3 in RBI, #2 in doubles, #4 (tie) in HRs.. and has drawn the fewest number of walks in the SEC, but also struck out the fewest times. Only Florida and Auburn have fewer sac bunts, only Arkansas has more sac flies. These guys will swing the bats and they’ll put the ball in the play.
Pitching wise, in-league only, Ole Miss’s 4.90 ERA is 11th as is their batting average against. Their 140 K’s are tied for 4th in the conference (two fewer than us). Only Arkansas and Auburn have walked fewer SEC hitters than Ole Miss (50, as opposed to our 73). Their .976 fielding percentage in SEC play is #6, behind our league leading .983.
Last weekend, I thought that Kentucky was the best offensive team that we’d faced to that point. I think that Ole Miss is the best overall team that we’ve seen. This is going to be a tough weekend, especially out there with Ole Miss going 2-4 the last two weekends away from Oxford. This will be the first really hostile atmosphere we’ve played in this season.
We took the series from Ole Miss in 2011, and in winning that Saturday game, run our SEC win streak up to 7. That was a tremendous series and probably the best game that we played all season out there, that Saturday afternoon. So I’ve good memories of Oxford in that respect, but overall, we haven’t had a ton of success there. The Saturday loss in 2009 really seemed to break that group. We had a couple of heart breaking losses there in 2007 as I recall, and we did in 2005 as well. In 2014, Ole Miss just beat the hell out of us on Friday night…. I can’t remember the score, it seemed like 12-2, something like that. Just wasn’t a competitive game. Walking out of the stadium that night, I would have thought you were insane if you’d told me that on Sunday we’d be in extra innings of a rubber game. But that’s what happened. We won a highly entertaining game 2-0 the next day behind a CG from Robert Tyler…. For me, that was the best start of Tyler’s career. I know he was an out away from a no hitter against Alabama in 2016, but Ole Miss was better offensively, it was on the road, etc. We had our chances Sunday, but just couldn’t finish it off.
Mike Bianco is a good coach. I don’t think of him the way I think of Kevin O’Sullivan or Tim Corbin or Paul Maneri… or Dave Van Horn or Rob Childress for that matter. I remember thinking a few times during that series out there in 2014 that Bianco wasn’t a great in-game coach… maybe that’s unfair, but I don’t think that we’re going to get outsmarted this weekend. But, obviously, that’s not what it’s all about. Ole Miss is a very strong team…. They’re 8-4 this year in one run games (8-2 before last Sunday in Nashville), so you’d think they’re comfortable playing in close contests. I don’t think that Bianco is going to lose them anything, either.
Really interested to see how this one shakes out. For all the talk about what we need to do to get into a regional, where things stand now, etc, we’re going to find out a lot about ourselves this weekend…
