Just when you think Ole Miss baseball's season can't get worse, Rebels find a way vs LSU

David Eckert, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
·3 min read
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OXFORD — There's a temptation to champion every positive Ole Miss baseball moment in this miserable 2023 season as the line in the sand, the point where the defending national champions remember their pedigree and snap out of their daze.

Almost without fail, that line is crossed. The moment lost. The rickety foundation bulldozed to the ground, leaving the Rebels to start building again.

It happened again on Sunday for Ole Miss (21-19, 3-15 SEC) against top-ranked LSU (32-7, 12-5) at Swayze Field. Having been outclassed in the first two games of the series, freshman Judd Utermark gave Ole Miss something to cling to, driving a fastball over the left field wall for a two-run shot and giving the Rebels a 6-4 lead in the eighth inning.

Mitch Murrell retired the first two LSU batters in the ninth, then walked one and hit another to put the go-ahead run at the plate in the form of pinch-hitter Hayden Travinski, who hadn't hit a home run this season.

Travinski got a hold of a 1-2 breaking ball and blasted it out to left for a three-run homer, putting the Tigers back in front. Calvin Harris doubled in the Ole Miss ninth, but the Rebels could not drive him in, falling 7-6.

"Not many people hit his breaking ball," Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco said. "Tough one to swallow."

This is the most drastic example of a gut-wrenching trend for the Rebels in the last two weeks.

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Against Memphis on April 11, Ole Miss took a two-run lead into the ninth and allowed back-to-back-to-back home runs in an 11-9 loss. After an emotional victory over Mississippi State on April 14, the Rebels blew a ninth-inning lead the next day and lost in walk-off fashion. In the final game of that series, they came from behind to tie the game in the seventh but immediately undid the good work by allowing a two-run homer to the Bulldogs in the bottom of the same frame.

Even Friday against the Tigers, Will Furniss gave Ole Miss what seemed like a big moment, turning around a 2-0 deficit with a three-run homer against all-world pitcher Paul Skenes. The Rebels promptly surrendered a grand slam in the next half-inning.

"There's really no words, I guess," Ole Miss freshman starter JT Quinn said when asked to recount Bianco's message to the team. "It's just not happening for us on the mound, it's not happening at the plate. We just can't pull together a win. It's just not going to happen. We gotta make it happen by ourselves."

Ole Miss is now two games adrift of Missouri at the bottom of the SEC standings. The Rebels trail Mississippi State by three games for 12th place ‐ the cutoff for SEC Tournament qualification. And the Bulldogs hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Their very narrow path to an NCAA Tournament bid and a chance to defend their title probably runs through the conference tournament, but first Ole Miss needs to get in. To do that, the Rebels need a line in the sand ‒ and one that actually sticks.

"All around, we didn't play good enough," Quinn said. "It's pretty sad because we had 10,000 people out here and we're just not playing good baseball right now.

"It sucks. It just kinda rips your heart out."

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

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: How Ole Miss baseball threw away yet another opportunity vs LSU