Vanderbilt emphatically evened the series on Saturday, beating Ole Miss, 13-2, to set up a rubber game on Sunday. The Commodores hit seven home runs and scored in seven of nine innings.
The Rebels are now 35-15 overall and 15-11 in the SEC. Ole Miss is 0-5 in SEC series finales that decide the weekend and 3-0 in SEC series finales with a sweep possible.
Ole Miss had no answer for Jack Leiter. The top-five pick this summer threw six innings and 91 pitches, giving up two hits with 13 strikeouts and three walks. Leiter does a great job tunneling his breaking ball, and it absolutely destroyed Ole Miss. The Rebels never picked it up and swung at pitches they didn’t identify out of his hand. It made Ole Miss not competitive and striking out without even extending counts.
Derek Diamond struggled on Saturday and allowed six runs on five hits in 4.1 innings with seven strikeouts and four walks. I thought he made good pitches early and Vanderbilt just hit him, but as has been the case in most of his outings this season, Diamond got too fine after that and nibbled too much, presenting bad counts and falling behind. Then, Vanderbilt hit pitches that were getting a lot of the plate in bad counts. The sophomore has a ton of talent, but he’s done a poor job minimizing innings and keeping the ball in the park — something that happens usually when he gets behind and doesn’t attack early in counts. There’s a certain mental growth that has to happen with young pitchers, especially ones on the SEC weekend. Gunnar Hoglund had to grow mentally after his freshman year, and he did it. This is Diamond’s first SEC season, and he needs to mature with his mindset and how to approach hitters in adverse situations. Ole Miss needs that transition soon. The Rebels just don’t have enough pitchers who can get outs consistently.
Ole Miss got the leadoff batter on four times in the six innings against Leiter but only advanced him to second base one time. Especially against that opponent, it was bad situational baseball. Those runs wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but just getting some traffic or runners in scoring position could change tempo and drive pitch counts up. Ole Miss was out of the game by the top of the fourth.
The Rebels were 0-for-4 scoring a runner from third with fewer than two outs, 3-for-20 with runners on and 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Ole Miss loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth with 4-5-6 up and then went strikeout, pop up, strikeout, strikeout, scoring the one run on a wild pitch.
Jacob Gonzalez got on base three times and didn’t strikeout. That’s noteworthy considering the full box score.
I know Vanderbilt touched both of them up, but I thought Brandon Johnson and Cody Adcock did some nice things in relief. Neither walked a hitter, and they threw the ball in the mid 90s.
The Rebels are now 35-15 overall and 15-11 in the SEC. Ole Miss is 0-5 in SEC series finales that decide the weekend and 3-0 in SEC series finales with a sweep possible.
Ole Miss had no answer for Jack Leiter. The top-five pick this summer threw six innings and 91 pitches, giving up two hits with 13 strikeouts and three walks. Leiter does a great job tunneling his breaking ball, and it absolutely destroyed Ole Miss. The Rebels never picked it up and swung at pitches they didn’t identify out of his hand. It made Ole Miss not competitive and striking out without even extending counts.
Derek Diamond struggled on Saturday and allowed six runs on five hits in 4.1 innings with seven strikeouts and four walks. I thought he made good pitches early and Vanderbilt just hit him, but as has been the case in most of his outings this season, Diamond got too fine after that and nibbled too much, presenting bad counts and falling behind. Then, Vanderbilt hit pitches that were getting a lot of the plate in bad counts. The sophomore has a ton of talent, but he’s done a poor job minimizing innings and keeping the ball in the park — something that happens usually when he gets behind and doesn’t attack early in counts. There’s a certain mental growth that has to happen with young pitchers, especially ones on the SEC weekend. Gunnar Hoglund had to grow mentally after his freshman year, and he did it. This is Diamond’s first SEC season, and he needs to mature with his mindset and how to approach hitters in adverse situations. Ole Miss needs that transition soon. The Rebels just don’t have enough pitchers who can get outs consistently.
Ole Miss got the leadoff batter on four times in the six innings against Leiter but only advanced him to second base one time. Especially against that opponent, it was bad situational baseball. Those runs wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but just getting some traffic or runners in scoring position could change tempo and drive pitch counts up. Ole Miss was out of the game by the top of the fourth.
The Rebels were 0-for-4 scoring a runner from third with fewer than two outs, 3-for-20 with runners on and 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Ole Miss loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth with 4-5-6 up and then went strikeout, pop up, strikeout, strikeout, scoring the one run on a wild pitch.
Jacob Gonzalez got on base three times and didn’t strikeout. That’s noteworthy considering the full box score.
I know Vanderbilt touched both of them up, but I thought Brandon Johnson and Cody Adcock did some nice things in relief. Neither walked a hitter, and they threw the ball in the mid 90s.
