No. 20 Ole Miss locked up a big, important series win against No. 9 Texas A&M on Sunday.
The Rebels move up to 34-18, 14-13 in SEC games this season with Saturday’s 6-5 win in the second of the day’s double-header. Afterwards, coach Mike Bianco spoke with reporters about both of Saturday’s game. Here’s everything he said.
Mike Bianco, Head Coach
On Texas A&M’s five-run fourth inning…
I think they showed you how good they are. They can make an adjustment like that. I’m sure that hasn’t happened to them much. They struck out eight of the first 10, I think. Really good at-bat by (Caden) Sorrell, and then a couple of good pitches that found holes. But to their credit, they wind up with a big home run. For Rabe, what a weekend. Everybody will look at the 14 punchouts and no walks, but I thought where he really grew up was after giving up the five. He comes back in, and we had Robertson ready, but we really didn’t want to go to the pen that early.
We just felt like we didn’t have enough juice in the pen to throw five or six innings. Anyway, he gets them one, two, three the next two innings. The thing that gets lost in all of this, and it really was the story of the game, is that it never seems to work out as planned. You ask a lot of times about pitching plans and whatnot. The plan was hopefully Calhoun does not come in, Hooks does not come in unless we’re ahead, and they don’t come in earlier than the seventh. We were just trying to hang on and get to those guys.
On Cade Townsend’s start in Saturday’s first game…
He was really good too, early. But again, I think that’s why (Texas A&M is) good. They make a lot of adjustments at the plate. He was, I think, six up, six down. Maybe a tick better than that. But the stuff, the velo, was down a tick. Everything seemed to be down a tick. I think also, with some of it, it’s hard to put it into words. People who watch the game and understand it know that sometimes it’s just their day. I think that was it. It was going to be their day. They hit a lot of hard balls, but some balls also found holes. We just couldn’t get off the field with anybody, and that usually doesn’t happen.
On Owen Paino…
Yeah, I’m proud of him. It’s amazing to have the ball find him. I think the second ball, the first ball put in play, went right to him. We’ve said it now for weeks. He’s really good, man. We’ve got to keep running him out there. Offensively, he’s really good. He’s a good baserunner. He’s just a really good baseball player. So, no, I’m proud of him.
On series win’s impact on NCAA Tournament positioning…
They’re all big. There are enough people that write about it and those things, so it’s not for me to really judge. Our job is to run to the finish line. Just win as many as you can while you still can.
On leadership, maturity showing up Saturday…
Yeah, and again, I say it a lot. You probably say it after losses more than wins, but there’s such a fine line. This league is so hard. It comes down to pitches. It comes down to plays. It comes down to at-bats. It comes down to getting your butt kicked in the first game, then coming out and the pitching staff, after not being able to get them out, really pitches awesome. Your offense continues to swing it well. So, yeah, credit those guys to be able to get beat up in the first game and then come back in the second game and play so well.
