Ole Miss baseball's Tim Elko "ready to go" for 2022 season after ACL injury

Ole Miss baseball captain Tim Elko might have had the most improbable and dramatic storyline of the entire 2021 college baseball season.

The Rebel first baseman, and sometimes third baseman, tore his ACL on April 5 when trying to avoid a player on first base. He missed roughly a month of the season before making his return to the line up at Texas A&M.

Mostly in a designated hitter role, Elko finished out the seasn, hitting seven home runs on one good leg and helped the Rebels get to the Super Regionals.

Following the end of the season last June, Elko underwent successful surgery days later.

“I’m a lot better the last month or two,” Elko told the Ole Miss Spirit this week. “The first couple months after surgery (were) kind of a long, not super fun but really coming along here as of late and feeling great and I’m absolutely fired up for this season.

“I’m pretty much a 100 percent right now. I’m doing all the normal lifts and fielding ground balls, hitting. We’re about to start scrimmages this weekend and I’ll be out there. I’m 100 percent and will be ready to go come Feb. 18.”

Elko is one piece of an entire lineup that returns for this season. The Rebels produced one of the most potent offenses in 2021.

The lineup has everyone back but Cael Baker, who transferred to Ohio University last August.

Getting a healthy Elko back in the lineup is essentially playing with house money. If the Rebel captain can continue hitting like he did the final two months of the season with one bad leg, the expectations are high for him on two healthy legs.

“It always feels great to have an older, experienced team,” Elko said. “But we’ve got some young guys, too, that we’re still trying to incorporate into the system. But I mean it feels great to have a lot of the same guys back and know how well we work together as a unit and really play for each other. I think that’s a huge part of having a great team is having that good team culture and we have that.”

During the fall and preseason practices, Elko said he has not been in the batter’s box too often against the Rebel pitchers, including the new additions.

Despite not having first-hand experience of what the new arms can do, he has watched them and is high on a couple transfers in Jack Washburn and John Gaddis.

Washburn came to Ole Miss from Oregon State while Gaddis transferred from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

“For new guys, I think John Gaddis and Wasbhurn have looked really, really good,” Elko said. “I think there’s a good chance they’ll probably be on the weekend but I think we’re just going to kind of try some different stuff out at the beginning of the year and see what works the best. But both of thoses guys have looked really good for the newcomers.

“John, an older guy and just experienced. Just a good pitcher. He just makes pitches and hits his spots and he’s a classic just really good lefty pitcher. Sure, he’s not going to blow you away with 97 (mph) but he throws three or four pitches for strikes whenever he wants his and he’ll put it exactly where he wants it.”

You can listen to Elko on the latest episode of Talk of Champions here. Ole Miss opens the season against Charleston Southern on Feb. 18 at 4:30 p.m. CT.