Hunter Elliott did not have his best stuff but it was still good enough as No. 24 Ole Miss tops Wright State
The ace of No. 24 Ole Miss was not at his best on Friday but even when Hunter Elliott is having an off night he is still one of the best to toe the rubber.
Through three starts in his comeback tour from injury Elliott still has not allowed a run as the Rebels defeated Wright State 9-1 in the opening game of the weekend series. The left-hander worked five innings, allowing a hit and striking out seven.
But the most notable thing when looking at his line were the five walks Elliott issued. An unusually high number in that category.
“I had to fight a little bit, but you have to compete and still throw up zeroes,” Elliott said. “I’ve always been solid at overcoming adversity. The next step is a little more consistency.”
Elliott had only one inning where he issued multiple walks but he managed to get out of each jam on his own. In the first and fifth innings he ended the frame with a strikeout. The other innings ended in a groundout, double play and a flyout.
This is something Ole Miss lacked the past couple years. A true ace that had the ability to create traffic on the base paths and then find a way to get out of trouble themselves without any damage.
“He’s able to make the pitch to get off the field,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said of Elliott. “I wish we could bottle it up. …Sometimes the difference isn’t how hard you throw or how much your breaking ball breaks. But it’s can you deliver the pitch to win the game, to get you off the field. The great ones do and he has that magic to do that.”
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Elliott got his pitch count stretched out to 85 pitches in his third start of the season. Look for that number to stay the same next weekend against Jacksonville State then maybe the the guardrails are taken off for the SEC opener against Arkansas.
The Ole Miss offense is starting to put consistent efforts together.
Another game where the Rebels (8-1) manage double-digit hits, using 12 to score nine runs on Friday. Most of the damage was done the traditional route with only one of those hits being a home run.
Ryan Moerman and Mitchell Sanford recorded two doubles each and combined for five hits and five runs batted in. Freshman Hayden Federico went 2-for-3 in the game with a pair of walks and Judd Utermark also had a multi-hit night and the one responsible for the home run.
Utermark hit a three-run shot just over the left field wall in the third inning to help break the game open for the Rebels.
“We haven’t been great with runners in scoring position and we haven’t been great with runners at third with less than two outs,” Bianco said. “We failed early in the game to do that. Judd had two strikes and ended up moving the ball. When Judd moves it it goes far and he ends up not just getting a run in but getting them all in, getting us off to a three-spot there. The offense continues to get warm. …We’re getting it from a lot of different people and when you do that your offense can be pretty good.”
Ole Miss and Wright State (3-4) will play game two of the series on Saturday at 4 p.m. CT.
