Offense eludes No. 11 Ole Miss in series-opening loss to South Carolina
Whatever happened in the closing innings of Sunday’s loss to Tennessee seems to have had a carry over effect into this week, causing No. 11 Ole Miss to not look like the team that was a handful of outs away from winning the series against two top 5 teams.
Thursday’s 3-2 loss at South Carolina is the second confounding result and one that comes just over 48 hours after dropping a game to Little Rock, 7-3, in Tuesday’s Kids’ Day game.
Both games that should were winnable on and off paper turned into losses for the Rebels (27-11, 9-7 Southeastern Conference) who are now losers in four of their last five games.
What happened in Columbia at Founder’s Park can only be summed up as an offense that stayed vanished after its disappearing act in Oxford on Tuesday.
South Carolina’s Brandon Stone earned the complete-game win after not going longer than five innings this season and was making his fourth start. He kept Ole Miss to two runs off six hits and needed only 86 pitches to get through nine innings.
The Rebels struck out 11 times and drew one walk never really pressuring or grinding out lengthy at-bats longer than four-five pitches. The two runs were solo home runs from catcher Austin Fawley and outfielder Mitchell Sanford in the third and sixth innings, respectfully.
“Obviously, not a great night for us swinging the bats,” Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said during his radio postgame interview. “You got to try to get more hits. We get a couple homers but not enough base runners tonight.”
Ole Miss stranded two runners the entire game and went 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position. With runners on base anywhere the Rebels went 1-for-5.
Top 10
- 1New
Shedeur Sanders reacts
To going undrafted in 1st round
- 2
Picks by conference
SEC, Big Ten dominate NFL Draft
- 3Hot
Joel Klatt calls out
'Trash' Shedeur Sanders narrative
- 4
10 Best Available Players
After NFL Draft 1st Round
- 5Trending
ESPN roasted
For Shedeur Sanders empty couch
Get the On3 Top 10 to your inbox every morning
By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.
On the mound starter Hunter Elliott had a better outing than in recent weeks. He went into the sixth inning but could not get through it which would have tied his longest outing of the season if he had.
Instead South Carolina (22-17, 3-13) got three runs off him on six hits in 5.1 innings of work. Elliott struck out five and issued a walk, which is what led to Bianco going to get him and bring in reliever Mason Morris out of the bullpen.
Once again Morris looked like one of the best arms available, including starters, for another week. He worked the final 2.2 innings and did not allow a run, striking out six Gamecock batters and did not issue a walk.
“The walks are a positive. I just think I wasn’t able to make the big pitch when I really needed to,” Elliott said after the game. “I wasn’t able to get some pitches to locations that I wanted to. That kind of is what ended up costing me. I think I did really well all night kind of getting ahead. I had a good game plan going in but they also had a good game plan.”
Ole Miss will try to even the series on Friday with a first pitch set for 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network+.
