With Peyton Chatagnier healthy, Ole Miss baseball gets its speed back for 2022

When Peyton Chatagnier suffered a hamstring injury early last season that kept him out for around a month, the Ole Miss baseball team lost some key speed around the base paths.

Heading into the 2022 season Chatagnier is fully healthy and that speed has returned. He attempted to steal a base three times last year but was never successful. He stole three bases during the short-lived 2020 season.

For a player like Chatagnier who has not been known as a power hitter who notches home run after home run and can trot around the bases, he must rely on that speed to collect more than singles.

“It was tough,” Chatagnier said of playing through the injury once he returned. “Our trainer has talked about it’s different for certain guys. Someone like Tim (Elko), he doesn’t necessarily have to use as much of a fast twitch muscle but it’s kind of the game that I have to play because I don’t just flick balls out of the yard like that. I kind of have to lay out for doubles.

“We did a good of coming back and recovering as best we could. But yeah, I’m excited to get to move around a little more.”

Despite the injury, Chatagnier finished with 13 doubles and six home runs and a .271 batting average.

If Chatagnier can become a consistent threat on the base path, he’ll join the top two main threats for the Rebels in Justin Bench and TJ McCants. Last season, Bench and McCants combined for 25 stolen bases on 31 attempts.

“People forget about, Petyon can really run,” Bianco said. “He just didn’t last year and that was more on me. He pulled his hamstring in the first weekend and we kind of put the breaks on him and didn’t want him to do much. We’re going to have some guys and those guys have to be aggressive.

Beyond being one of the returning nine that led to producing the best offense in the SEC a season ago, Chatagnier is also part of one of the best returning middle infields.

Paired with shortstop Jacob Gonzalez who is primed for an encore performance after his All-American freshman season, Chatagnier is the other half of what head coach Mike Bianco thinks is one of the best duos in the country at those positions.

Working with Gonzalez, Chatagneir sees how the sophomore has improved his game from last year heading into the 2022 campaign.

“I don’t think anyone doubts that he’s going to be great. He’s going to be awesome,” Chatagnier said of Gonzalez. “He’s tremendous. He’s looked good since he stepped on campus and he’s done the same since.”

Getting the bat warmer this season is a key for Chatagnier. If he can do so, it will only increase the threat of the Rebels lineup that returns every piece of it.

Freshman pitcher Hunter Elliott said there will be good hitters sitting on the bench that do not get to take the field or many at-bats. Chatagnier only echoed those same sentiments but does not see it as a negative at all.

“We’ve got pretty much everybody coming back, but we’ve also had some guys that didn’t get a lot of playing time last year that I think are going to see play a little bit more,” Chatagnier said. “I think Kemp (Aldermen) is going to have a bigger role for us this year. He’s done tremendous last fall and even this spring. We’ve got a couple freshman that are really good, too. It’s a tough position coach (Bianco) is in, but it’s probably a good problem to have.”