Ole Miss’ Kemp Alderman keeps hitting ludicrous HRs — to the surprise of no one, especially Mike Bianco
Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco has known Kemp Alderman, his middle-of-the-order masher, since the latter was 12-years-old.
One of his sons, Sam, played travel ball with him growing up in Mississippi. Alderman has wanted to be an Ole Miss Rebel for as long as he can remember. Ole Miss is and always will be his dream school.
Bianco has also never known anyone else who can hit a baseball harder.
Alderman, in his third Rebel season, has now hit his sixth and seventh home runs in back-to-back games of a three-game series with Purdue this weekend. Alderman has climbed into a tie for fourth — with five other players — in the SEC in the category.
The Rebels bullied the Boilermakers in a 15-7 series-opening win. They had pulled even at four apiece in Game 2 after Alderman’s third-inning shot on Saturday landed in left field — 432 feet away from home plate.
His latest shot left his bat at 112 mph.
“We’ve never had somebody in the program hit the ball as hard,” Bianco once said of Alderman. “Hard consistently, day in and day out, in (batting practice), intrasquad games (and) the exit velocity.”
Remember, Bianco has been leading Ole Miss baseball for over 20 seasons now.
Last season he led the Rebels to their first-ever national championship and second trip to Omaha for the College World Series since the 70s.
That team featured three-time team captain Tim Elko, who set the single-season school record for home runs last season. Kevin Graham was a decorated slugger in his own right — he’s the record-holder for most home runs by an Ole Miss freshman.
Stephen Head could mash, as could Brian Pettway, Sikes Orvis, Tyler Keenan, Seth Smith, Nick Fortes, Matt Smith, Matt Snyder, Mark Wright, Logan Power, Zack Cozart, Colby Bortles and Will Allen.
Alderman, though, is literally built different.
Alderman stands a hulking 6-foot-3, 250 pounds.
He’s not-so-dissimilar in size to his Ole Miss teammate and fellow slugger Tywone Malone. Malone pulls double-duty as a Rebel. He’s also a defensive tackle on the football team.
But he’s not just all raw potential anymore. No, Alderman has come a long way from his days as a wide-eyed country kid from Decatur (Mississippi) who struck out in over 60 percent of his plate appearances in the fall and preseason as a true freshman.
He even failed to homer — a possibility, these days, that seems almost unfathomable.
Hitting coach Mike Clement identified a hitch in Alderman’s swing as Alderman was still feeling his way as a freshman. The fix ended up being straightening Alderman’s arm to form a somewhat unorthodox stance and load.
Hits followed in controlled scrimmages for redshirt and rarely-used players — a group in which Alderman counted himself.
Then came April 24, 2021.
Alderman blasted his first Ole Miss home run in walk-off fashion of a 10-9 comeback Ole Miss win over LSU. It left the yard to the opposite field at 110 mph.
He’s since grown into the Rebels’ lineup linchpin and their most-feared hitter for opposing pitchers to face. But even with the spotlight set firmly on him, he’s still delivering, including a ludicrous moonshot on Friday night that had to have set some kind of Swayze Field record for exit velocity (118 mph).
Ole Miss is currently one of only two teams in the NCAA with four every-day starters hitting at or above .400.
Throw Alderman in the middle and the Rebels obviously have a combustible mix of potential explosion to unleash on teams such as Purdue. They’re in the Top 4 in the SEC in batting average, slugging, on-base percentage and hits.
They’re Top 6 in home runs and RBI.
“I’ve always been an Ole Miss fan my whole life,” Alderman, who’s now riding a 10-game hitting streak, said previously. “This is what I dreamed of.”
