Changes coming once again for Ole Miss’ weekend rotation: “It’s not a secret we’ve struggled.”

Coming off one of the more lopsided weekends in recent program history there are changes coming to No. 10 Ole Miss’ weekend rotation for a second time this month.

No. 1 Tennessee came to Oxford this past weekend and bullied the Rebels pitching staff, outscoring them 26-7. The closest game was Sunday’s 4-3 Volunteer win in the series finale.

Last weekend saw the musical chairs of the weekend rotation with John Gaddis getting the Friday start while Derek Diamond — the original Friday starter of the season — slotted down to Sunday and Jack Dougherty pitching Saturday.

That combination was not a winning one and following the Rebels 20-3 win over North Alabama on Tuesday, head coach Mike Bianco acknowledged the struggles and the rotation could have a new look to it once again.

“It’ll be different,” Bianco said. “It’s not a secret we’ve struggled in that. I think one of the messages to the staff today was it really doesn’t matter who starts. At the end of the day some of the guys have done well some of them haven’t done well.”

Who will be manning those three starting slots this weekend against Kentucky as the Rebels travel to Lexington this weekend is unknown. Two of the three may not be known until the day of the game, but Bianco said he wants to list a Friday guy but to expect “a couple TBAs” as well.

Starting pitching is the biggest issue off the pitching staff, more so than the bullpen. Of the 87 runs allowed in weekend series this season the starters are responsible for just over 65 percent of them, allowing 57 runs.

Beyond the runs given up, the starting pitchers are are not putting together long outings on the weekends. The starters are averaging less than four innings per outing with Gaddis’ seven innings on March 5 in the 1-0 loss to UCF in extra innings being the longest of the season.

“We need somebody to just to grab the ball, get some outs and pass the ball to the next guy,” Bianco said. “We have pitched it really well out of the bullpen and if you take away the one Auburn game, which is one-third of the bullpen’s runs, it’s amazing how well the bullpen’s pitched.”

If there is a major shakeup to the rotation this weekend there are a couple options from the bullpen Bianco can choose from.

The first that come to mind are Hunter Elliott and Riley Maddox. Each have proven worthy of being able to come in and put out a fire in an inning and then follow up with a few shutdown innings. The question is how would they be coming out on the front end with a clean sheet and no runners on the base paths.

More than likely a move with one of those two in mind is going to happen based on what transpired on Tuesday. Jack Washburn took his normal midweek start but went only three innings against North Alabama.

There was an expectation, or a hope, by Bianco that Washburn would throw less than the 56 pitches he did against the Lions in case he is used or needed out of the pen this weekend, which would lead to believe Elliott or Maddox might be a starter.

A couple times this year Bianco had walked up to the point, but not fully acknowledged they might got the route of using an opener before turning to the bullpen. On Tuesday he continued that but also reinforced the need to just have someone, anyone on the mound who can get outs.

“I told (the pitching staff), ‘I’m not saying opener or anything like that but we have to get back to the it doesn’t matter,” Bianco said. “But it really doesn’t matter, does it? At the end of the day its 27 outs and we have to win Game 1 and put that together and figure out if a guy gives us three at the beginning or four at the beginning. If somebody comes in just to face these three hitters in the middle.

“So, we probably have to do a better job of setting that up and game planning to get through the game with our guys. Because, I think we can pitch it pretty well. We’ve just got to figure out how to get through the game and we haven’t been able to do that through the six conference games for sure.”

The Rebels (17-7, 2-4 SEC) and the Wildcats (17-9, 2-4) start their weekend series on Friday with a first pitch of 5:30 p.m. CT. Saturday’s game will start at 1 p.m. CT and Sunday’s finale will start at Noon CT. All three games will air on SEC Network+