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No. 23 Ole Miss unable to make it a perfect week as No. 9 Vanderbilt avoids the sweep

11by:Jake Thompson•about 16 hours•

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Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco (Photo credit: Ole Miss Baseball/X)

Sunday definitely bout a sour taste in the mouth for No. 23 Ole Miss to end what was otherwise a much-needed bounce back week.

After taking the first two games of the weekend series No. 9 Vanderbilt avoided the sweep with a 13-0 win over the Rebels in seven innings. The lone loss on the week after Ole Miss went 1-3 the week prior with losses to Little Rock and South Carolina.

If Ole Miss had been able to complete the sweep it would have been five straight wins dating back to last Saturday’s win in the series finale in Columbia. All five wins would have been against Southeastern Conference opponents, including Tuesday’s comeback win over Mississippi State in the Governor’s Cup.

Still, 3-1 against that competition is a nice bounce-back to what looked like it could have been a potential spiral that carried into this week. Instead what did happen was the Rebels (31-13, 12-9 SEC) got a win over the Bulldogs and pocketed another pair of wins over a Top 10 team.

Good for the RPI, which now has Ole Miss sitting at 17 after Sunday’s loss.

As for the game itself it was a completely forgettable one as the Commodores (31-13, 12-9) roughed up Rebels starter Mason Nichols for five runs off five hits and a pair of walks in 1-plus innings of work. He did not record a strikeout before coming out of the game in the second inning.

The bottom of the second inning proved to be the most noteworthy of the entire game for Ole Miss. Head coach Mike Bianco talked with home plate umpire Will Posey after the first inning when it seemed Vanderbilt starter Connor Fennell was pitching fast and before the Rebel batters were set and looking.

This caused Posey to continue to ring up strikes on batters as the penalty, part of the new rules to speed up the pace of play.

Once the second inning arrived Bianco had seen enough, it seems, and went out to talk with Posey once more. This resulted in Posey walking away and then ejecting Bianco, who then became upset and charged back towards Posey. Ole Miss third baseball coach Mike Clement and other umpires got Bianco back to the the Rebels dugout.

“The pitcher is not allowed to pitch until the hitter is looking at them,” Bianco said. “He’s obviously doing it right at that point, and so it makes it really difficult. That’s what the rule is.”

After Bianco headed to the clubhouse there was a move pitching coach Joel Mangrum made, which was bringing in reliever Mason Morris less than two full days removed from throwing 42 pitches in Friday’s win.

The usual first arm out of the bullpen on Friday was available, according to Bianco, as was closer Connor Spencer after needing only four pitches to get the final out in Saturday’s win. Morris entered in the fifth inning, allowing a run off two hits but record the final out of the inning on nine pitches.

“The way we drew it up in the beginning is we knew Morris and (Will) McCausland and Spencer were all available,” Bianco said. “We didn’t know how much but for sure at least three innings, maybe one apiece. Maybe a little bit more depending what it looked like, what they felt like. We decided before the game that we would shoot the Morris bullet as soon as the game was in jeopardy. We were thinking more middle of the game.”

Ole Miss hosts Austin Peay on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. CT. No starter has been decided, yet.

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