After completing a three-game sweep of Florida international to open the season, Ole Miss will play its first midweek game of the season on Tuesday against Arkansas State at Swayze field.
Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco said after Sunday’s win over FIU that true freshman James McArthur will get the ball on Tuesday in his first career start for the Rebels.
J.B. Woodman hits the ball for an RBI on Friday’s 9-2 win over Florida International University. (Photo by: Cameron Brooks)
McAruthur is a 6-foot-7-inch, 215 pound right hander from New Braunfels Texas. The lanky freshman made his Ole Miss debut in game two of this past weekend’s series and allowed one run on one hit and a walk in an inning of work.
McArthur will look to help the Rebels improve in midweek games, which was an area they struggled in a year ago posting a 7-6 record. The six midweek losses hurt the Rebels’ RPI in 2015, and made them play a numbers game down the stretch. A team must finish over .500 in overall record to be considered for post-season play, and the Rebels. The Rebels last year had to win a midweek game against Arkansas State to clinch postseason eligibility.
The struggles in the midweek stemmed from a number of issues, but predominantly pitching depth. Ole Miss was unable to find a consistent starter in midweek games, and mostly relied on Evan Anderson who posted a 1-3 record and a 6.02 record in 15 appearances and seven starts.
Ole Miss also had a relatively thin bullpen in 2015 and had a hard time finding the answer on the mound late in games at time.
The Rebels signed 11 new pitchers in the offseason, several of whom made their debut this past weekend and pitched well, to improve the issue.
Ole Miss will look to stay hot from the plate after scoring 32 runs in its opening series, the most in a season-opening series since 2010. Arkansas State comes in with a record of 2-1 after winning its opening series against UAB on the road. The Red Wolves scored 15 runs to open the series on Friday.
Ole Miss won both match ups between the two school last year. The Rebels won 2-1 in the first meeting in Oxford, and won 17-3 in the aforementioned meeting in Jonesboro later that year.
Arkansas state has not yet announced who it will start in tomorrow’s match up. Tomorrow’s game is the fourth in an eight game home stand to open the year for Ole Miss.
First pitch was pushed up to 3 p.m. on Monday night to combat for possible rain storms.
