The final month of Ole Miss’ regular season will be an interesting one, to say the least. If the Rebels are anywhere near contention for an SEC regular season crown heading into this final stretch, they will have to earn it over a stretch of 12 games in 20 days prior to the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama.
This will hopefully be the penultimate month in the Rebels’ 2017 season as a whole, seeing that they will play in June should the team make the NCAA Tournament, and it begins with two midweek games against Louisiana-Monroe before welcoming the second-ranked Florida Gators for three games that next weekend. Florida has a loaded pitching staff and will likely contend for a national championship this season. This will be an opportunity for the Rebels not only to shakeup the SEC standings but also add to their NCAA Tournament résumé and also garner some momentum as the postseason quickly approaches.
Next comes an open midweek that will give Ole Miss an opportunity to rest some arms before welcoming in another heavyweight in Texas A&M, who is ranked 20th in D1basbeall.com’s preseason poll. The Aggies, along with Florida were one of the best teams in college baseball a year ago, and will boast a rotation that includes the likes of Brigham Hill and Turner Larkin. Texas A&M will be a team that pitches very well and plays good defense. It will be yet another test for some of the Rebels’ young bats–who will have already seen their fair share of elite arms to this point–as the regular season winds down. Ole Miss managed to steal one game from A&M in College Station but was largely overwhelmed in the other two by Boomer White and the Aggie offense. Luckily for the Rebels (and really every pitcher in college baseball), White’s eligibility has run out.
The Texas A&M series is the final regular season home series at Swayze Field, sending the Rebels on the road in the last week. It will begin with a midweek game in Jonesborough, Arkansas, against a tricky Arkansas State club that beat Ole Miss in this very game last year. In the grand scheme of things, this game doesn’t mean much, as the Rebels’ rigorous slate will bolster their RPI enough to where games like this can’t hurt them, but dropping a midweek game to the Red Wolves is not an ideal direction to be trending in mid-May.
The final series of Ole Miss’ 2017 schedule will come on the road against Auburn. Butch Thompson is in his second year rebuilding the Tigers’ program. While Auburn likely won’t be atop the SEC standings at this point, it could very well be fighting for one of the final spots in the SEC Tournament the next week, which will make it a desperate ball club coming down the stretch. The Tigers get ace Keegan Thompson back on the mound after Tommy John surgery and have more than enough pitching to compete in every SEC series they play in. With the Rebels’ schedule being so tough in the first two weekends of May, there is a multitude of scenarios that could make this a crucial series for them in the season’s final weekend.
After those final three SEC bouts, it will be time for postseason play, beginning with the SEC Tournament in Hoover. The Rebels hope the month of May certainly isn’t their last of the season.
