Ole Miss baseball got ‘punched in the mouth’ last week but ready to get off the mat

For the first time this season No. 13 Ole Miss baseball had a no good, very bad week last week and starting Southeastern Conference play off on the wrong note. Nothing went well from the pitching to the offense.

Now, the Rebels are trying to make sure one week does not become a snowball of multiple weeks similar to how the middle of last season went. Of course in the end the 2022 campaign turned out alright but it is not a blueprint for success Ole Miss (15-6, 0-3 SEC) wants to replicate.

A loss at Jacksonville State last Tuesday then swept by Vanderbilt this past weekend handed the Rebels their first 0-4 week of the season. One bad week out of 14 does not a season make, but it can be the catalyst for one to begin.

“We did not perform very well and in this league if you don’t perform well you’re going to get ran through and that’s kind of what happened,” said Ole Miss second baseman Peyton Chatagnier. “For whatever reason that may be. We know that. We know we’re a better team than that. I don’t think anybody’s pressed or worried. It is what it is. It’s baseball.”

Chatagnier is one of 20 players that were a part of last year’s up and down season, including an April where Ole Miss dropped four straight SEC weekend series.

The returning players have experience in handling a bad week, or two, but now they must become the leaders in the locker room and make sure the younger players and those new to the SEC life keep the blinders on and not dwell on four bad games.

“I think they’ve done a good job of that,” Chatagnier said of the younger players. “But part of that is, the older guys just being the same person. Trust me, I’ve been through a lot of losses here. But I think everybody knows that, especially from looking at last year, this game of baseball’s crazy and it’s what makes it so much fun, though.”

Ole Miss got back to its winning ways on Tuesday, defeating Arkansas-Pine Bluff to snap the losing skid.

A slow start at the plate where the offense was continuing to struggle made a sudden turnaround, scoring eight runs in two innings.

Ole Miss run-ruled the Golden Lions, 11-1, in seven innings and returned to the win column for the first time in over a week. A midweek win does not mean suddenly everything is okay but it is a good first dose of medicine.

“We got to be better and we got to be tougher,” said Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco. “We were (tonight). Just a bad week where the other teams played really well and we did nothing to combat that. You have to in our game because like tonight, it can turn on a dime all of a sudden. …When you get punched in the mouth you got to handle it a little bit better than we did last week.”

Getting the confidence back at the plate and at the mound is a start. With No. 3 Florida (19-4, 2-1) coming to Oxford this weekend will be the first barometer to if Ole Miss is returning to the team that was dominating Big Ten teams all non-conference or still working through things.

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