Mike Bianco on DeLucia against Auburn: 'He's just almost been flawless'

Ole Miss baseball head coach Mike Bianco shared a few words with the team at ESPN on his team’s opening round performance in the College World Series against the Auburn Tigers. The Rebels own a 3-0 lead heading into the sixth inning, largely thanks to the pitch clinique put on by Dylan DeLucia.

“Everything, right,” said Bianco when asked what he’s getting for DeLucia today. “He’s just almost been flawless out there. Really locating the fastball on both sides (of the plate). Filling up the strike zone with the breaking ball. You can tell just really keeping them off balance.”

Heading into the 6th inning, DeLucia has kept the Tigers off the scoreboard and has only allowed one hit. If the Rebels are to advance to the next round, Bianco will need his star pitcher to continue with his impressive performance.

Another aspect of Ole Miss’ offense getting hot once again in the back end of the season is the clutch hitting with two outs.

During their seven-game winning streak in mid-may, Ole Miss scored over 20 runs with two outs on the scoreboard. On Saturday, four of the five runs were scored with two outs.

Gonzalez looked dominant in the opening portions of the innings but once he needed one more out to get back in the dugout, Ole Miss went back to what has done so well lately and hung crooked numbers on the scoreboard.

“It’s just sticking to your approach,” said Kevin Graham. “But that’s something we’ve emphasized since I got here, is getting that big two-out hit. With two outs, even with nobody on, there’s a lot of inning left and just grinding out at-bats and winning pitches. Those two-out runs can be huge. They can be back-breakers.”

Graham hit the lone home run of the game which set a program record for most home runs in a season at 100. The previous record was 98 set in the 1998 season.

With Dylan DeLucia hanging up zeros and keeping Auburn’s bats silent for most of the night it allowed Ole Miss to find its groove against Gonzalez.

Now, Ole Miss is in the driver’s seat of Bracket 2 along with Arkansas. The pair will meet on Monday in the 1-0 game for the right to advance to the championship game of that bracket on Wednesday.

Arkansas put up 17 runs on Stanford in the first game of the day. Ole Miss will need those clutch hits and hot bats to stay hot for 48 more hours.