Starting pitching fuels Ole Miss baseball's series win vs Texas A&M, lifts regional hopes

OXFORD ― At one point, Ole Miss baseball coach Mike Bianco feared the starter who would set the tone in a crucial series win over Texas A&M might not be able to take the ball.

Riley Maddox had developed an infection that required an "emergency" removal of his wisdom teeth on Monday. Bianco was nervous about his status.

"I've had five (kids), and five of them got their wisdom teeth out. Some of them got knocked out for a few days," Bianco said. "I turned to our trainer Josh (Porter) on the way back from Auburn. I was like, 'Man, are you sure he really needs to do this right now? Is there something we can do?' "

But Maddox's recovery proved straightforward. On Friday, after gulping down some precautionary Advil, he jogged out to the mound at Swayze Field. There, he flummoxed a Texas A&M offense that entered the series ranked sixth nationally in runs scored, holding the Aggies to two runs in six innings and striking out a career-high seven.

He had some advice from a friend and former teammate to thank. Jack Dougherty, now pitching in the Minnesota Twins organization, prodded him to toy with a sweeper — a new breaking ball to get righthanded batters out. After some tinkering, Maddox unveiled the new weapon against the Aggies to great effect.

"I was a little worried because I didn't throw a bullpen this week because I got my wisdom teeth out on Monday," Maddox said of the pitch's debut. "But it worked pretty good today."

Thanks to an eighth-inning rally, Ole Miss turned Maddox's start into a 4-3 victory. And Liam Doyle delivered similar excellence in a 10-2 blowout win Saturday. The lefty held Texas A&M to one run in six innings, striking out seven and did not issue a walk, riding an aggressive approach and a brilliant fastball.

"What makes him go is the fastball," Bianco said. "It's just an elite fastball."

Mason Nichols pitched five innings on Sunday and allowed just one run, but the Rebels couldn't support him, playing bad defense and looking overmatched at the plate in a 6-0 loss. It denied them the sweep that would have eased some pressure heading into the May 16-18 series against LSU in Baton Rouge.

Ole Miss (27-24, 11-16 SEC) needs two more victories to reach 13, generally the prerequisite number for regional consideration.

"Now you can see the finish line," Bianco said. "I think we're in a better position than we were a week ago, or a better position than we were two, three, four or five weeks ago . . . But now you gotta finish."

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The Rebels entered this weekend with the SEC's second-worst team earned run average — a 6.06 mark surpassed in its unsightliness only by Florida's 6.26.

But in its past seven games, Ole Miss has pitched to a much more palatable 4.17 ERA.

Outside of Maddox, who featured in a four-game, opening-weekend series at Hawaii but was excluded from the weekend rotation for more than a month thereafter, this Rebels rotation is made up of arms who weren't in Bianco's first plan for weekend starts — or maybe even his second. Owing to injury and ineffectiveness, they're getting a shot. And they've grown into their roles.

Maybe it's small sample-size variance. But maybe, after searching for months, the Rebels have found something that works.

"I thought we pitched it really, really well against a really good offense," Bianco said.

David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: How Ole Miss baseball's starting pitchers dominated Texas A&M