Ole Miss Baseball controversially won a midweek game against Louisiana Tech earlier this season because the weather intervened.
When the Rebels took on Texas A&M on Friday night, Mother Nature did her part to equalize.
After a nearly 90-minute weather delay, starter Jack Dougherty had to be pulled from the game. A 4-3 lead by Ole Miss in the seventh inning gave way to a total surrender.
The Rebels committed two errors in the frame, including a throw error on a simple ground ball back to pitcher Mitch Murrell, who then conceded a grand slam to Aggie’s left fielder Jace LaViolette. Texas A&M continued to win 8-6, giving Ole Miss his seventh straight loss to start conference play.
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Dougherty – who allowed three runs in six innings – would have been pitching the seventh had it not been for the delay, Rebels coach Mike Bianco confirmed after the game.
“He ran away when lightning struck,” Bianco said. “We thought we could probably get another inning out of him… He kept his pace. In fact, he hit 95 with the gun in the sixth inning and threw as hard as he had thrown all game, so surely he would have gone another inning.”
Homers from Jacob Gonzalez and Anthony Calarco and an RBI double from Peyton Chatagnier put the Rebels (15-10, SEC 0-7) within striking distance of their first SEC win when the Aggies (16-10, 2-5) came up batting with Murrell on the mound in the seventh.
Third baseman Ethan Lege made a throwing error on a colorful single to start the inning, which allowed Jordan Thompson to move up to second place. A good throw to first base would likely have given Thompson the first out of the inning.
Murrell then initiated a groundout and looked like he had the second out on a routine comeback he had flown well over Calarco at first base. Bianco chose to purposely walk the next Aggies batter to load the bases with an out. Murrell almost escaped his own mistake by defeating Austin Bost.
The story goes on
But Bianco then called a first-pitch fastball for LaViolatte, which he later regretted, and he fired a rocket straight over the wall in right field to give Texas A&M a 7-4 lead.
“Murrell’s big pitch is a slider, he’d just beat Bost on sliders,” Bianco said. “…We had hit (LaViolette) with fastballs and obviously the scouting report on Mitch is that he throws a lot of breaking balls, so we were just trying to sneak a fastball in and then probably go to the breaking ball.
“Obviously he was ready for it.”
Brett Minnich launched a solo homer in front of Murrell in the eighth game to extend the lead and made Kemp Alderman’s two-run shot in the ninth contention point for the Rebels.
David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at [email protected] or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: How Mother Nature Helped Keep Ole Miss Baseball Winless in the SEC
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