Ole Miss hits the road to Tuscaloosa this weekend to face Alabama in a three-game series in its new, fully-renovated Sewell-Thomas Stadium. The Rebels were swept in their last trip in 2014.
Ole Miss completed a much-needed sweep of Arkansas last weekend before falling 5-1 to Southern Miss on Wednesday night in a midweek matchup.
On The Mound
(Photo by: Evan Turner)
Brady Bramlett pitches in a game earlier this season against Arkansas. Bramlett will start Friday night against Alabama in a crucial series.
Friday night will feature a pair of junior right-handers in Brady Bramlett for Ole Miss and Geoffrey Bramblett for Alabama. Bramlett is coming off of his best start of the year for the Rebels. He threw seven innings of threw-hit baseball and struck out six in Ole Miss’ first Friday night win in SEC play.
“He was really, really good tonight,” Ole Miss Head Coach Mike Bianco said. “He was just really able to use all four pitches.”
Bianco called it his best start of the year.
Bramlett improved to 5-2 on the year with the win. Low-scoring games are the theme on Friday nights in the SEC and the Rebels will need another strong outing from their ace if they wish to win this one.
Alabama’s Bramblett enters the game with a 3-1 record and a 2.39 ERA. He earned a win in the series finale against Ole Miss a year ago, going seven innings, surrendering three runs on eight hits and striking out six batters.
Ole Miss has struggled on Friday nights so far in the SEC, and playing on the road will make it even more important if the Rebels were to grab the first game of this series.
The Saturday job appears to be David Parkinson’s to lose at this point for Ole Miss. He earned a win in his first start last weekend as the Rebels went with a new-look rotation. The sophomore left-hander went 5.1 innings and allowed just one run on three hits, and gave Mike Bianco more than enough confidence to send him back out this weekend.
Jake Walters, a sophomore righty, will start on Saturday for Alabama. He boasts a 2-3 record with a 2.43 ERA this season. Walters had the best outing of any Alabama starter in last year’s series in Oxford, going seven innings and allowed a run on six hits. But it came in a loss as he was outlasted by Bramlett who went a career-high of 7.1 innings while scattering four hits without allowing a run in Ole Miss’ game two win a year ago.
Walters will be a tougher counterpart for Parkinson to go against than he faced last weekend.
Ole Miss went TBA for the second weekend in a row, and a third time this year when listing its game three starter. However, it seems clearer after last weekend that Bianco will throw junior left-hander and former closer Wyatt Short, if he is not needed, out of the bullpen in the first two games. Short went 4.1 innings last week and allowed three runs on six hits, and did not factor in the decision. Short, who has been dominant at times, admitted after that game he was not feeling his best going into the start.
“Both, honestly. I just wasn’t feeling my best,” Short said after his first start since high school. “My arm wasn’t feeling the best, but I made some pitches and Coach B stuck in there with me.”
He did what a Sunday starter is supposed to do, and that is give your team a chance to win in the late innings, which the Rebels did.
Alabama will start Nick Eicholtz, another junior right-hander. He currently has a 2-1 Mark with a 2.51 ERA.
Offense
The Ole Miss offense came to life last weekend in a 29-run outburst. A team that struggled to find offense for a stretch this year have a number of different guys trending in a positive direction. Errol Robinson has multiple hits in five of his last six games and has pulled his batting average up some 50 points during that stretch. Henri Lartigue leads all SEC catchers with a .361 batting average, and J.B. Woodman is 15-31 with runners in scoring position this year. Tate Blackman is also riding an eight-game hitting streak going into this series.
Analysis
This is a really big series for both teams. Each club sits two games back of first in the SEC West and are two of four teams with a 6-6 SEC record, jockeying for position and trying to jump Texas A&M and Mississippi state at the top of the division. Last week’s sweep got Ole Miss back on the right trajectory. This team has everything to play for and all of its goals at the beginning of the year are still out there for the taking. Good teams, teams that host regionals and earn national seeds find ways to win series like this on the road. It will be a great test for a ball club that has seemingly found its footing again, and I think they will find a way to pull two wins.
