The Ole Miss baseball team dominated their midweek matchup against the Alcorn State Braves to win yet another game in run-rule fashion to improve to 11-1 on the season.
What did I just watch?
That was one of the weirder college baseball games you could ever see. The game seemed to have something wacky happen every inning, and the fact that the two teams were very lopsided talent-wise didn’t help. Alcorn State’s starting pitcher walked the first five guys he faced and couldn’t make it out of the first frame. His replacement came in and consistently threw a changeup-like pitch that topped out at 67 mph. He never threw a fastball or breaking ball the entire time he pitched and actually had a little bit of success against the Rebel offense.
He was able to limit the first inning damage to just three runs, and he made it through the second inning with only one run allowed. In the second inning, Ole Miss’s Peyton Chatagnier stole second, third and home base in one play, with no errors made by the Braves. Yes, you read that right. Chatagnier stole second base in a close play and for some reason, the Braves third baseman drifted over too far towards second base, leaving third base wide open. Chatagnier noticed this and took off towards third to the surprise of everyone watching. When he took off to third, the Brave’s catcher left home to try and cover the third base bag to tag Chatagnier out. The throw was late, and with nobody covering home, Chatagnier took off towards home and made it easily, making for one of the strangest plays you’ll ever see on a diamond. Alcorn State pitched a pitcher with a 20.25 ERA on the season and pitched mostly position players for the rest of the game, which resulted in 14 team walks. It was certainly one of the weirder college baseball games you’ll see.
Jack Dougherty to start on Sunday
After the game, Ole Miss Head Coach Mike Bianco announced that Jack Dougherty will start this Sunday against Oral Roberts. This news comes just a couple days after it was announced that Derek Diamond will start on Saturday and John Gaddis will start on Friday. Dougherty will be making his first start of the year as Drew McDaniel will move to the bullpen. After disappointing outings from Diamond and McDaniel against UCF, it is clear that Bianco is ready to shake things up from a starting rotation standpoint. It will be interesting to see how each pitcher adjusts to their new role and what else Bianco might do in the future with the rotation.
Ole Miss looked solid in every facet of the game.
Yes, it was a midweek game against an 0-7 Alcorn State team, but Ole Miss did what it was supposed to do and looked as well as it could. With teams all over the country dropping games to inferior opponents, (hey State fans) it’s a good sign that the Rebels can take care of what they need to in a way that they need to. If Ole Miss can avoid losing a midweek game throughout the course of the season, that will help its resume come May.
