Yesterday, in our end of the 2012 SEC Baseball Tournament bracket, two hard fought games set us up for today. After plastering Arkansas 9-1, Mississippi State unleashed Chris Stratton on the LSU Tigers. Hapless the Tigers were, as Stratton ground (Grinded? Hath gegrounded?) for his State to reach his 11th win of the season. LSU would lose 3-2. Mike Mayers would dominate in similar fashion, throwing seven innings and allowing Brett Huber to close out the game for the save, as the Rebels shutout the Arkansas Razorbacks 2-0. That victory is the only third SEC shutout the Rebels have had all year. Huber's save, his 28th on his career, puts him atop the Ole Miss leaderboard alongside Stephen Head in that category all time. So, really, all sorts of milestones were reached.
So Mississippi State advances and Ole Miss and LSU are left to face each other. It's like the worst case scenario for Ole Miss fans ever. Our options were to lose to LSU or lose to State, or beat one just to face the other.
Today at, you guessed it, 9:30 AM central, the Rebels will face the Tigers. For LSU, they should feel comfortable today as they are starting Kevin Gausman - a surefire first round type of prospect - against our much maligned TBD. Poor TBD. Guy can't catch a break. RJ Hively, the guy we would typically see in this situation, is feeing some soreness in his arm, so he is questionable. If that lingers, we're guessing that the Rebels are going to do their best to piecemeal some sort of pitching rotation together by starting Dylan Chavez and unloading the bullpen early and often. Tanner Bailey. Don't get shelled out there, Tanner.
So here it is, rebumped for all of you. Open thread away.
***EVERYTHING BELOW THIS IS OLD WHY ARE YOU READING IT WHY DO YOU STILL CARE***
The Rebels lost 2-0 to Kentucky to open the 2012 SEC Baseball Tournament. Bobby Wahl delivered in excellent fashion, but literally received no run support at all as Ole Miss stranded approximately one billion runners and, again, failed to deliver in clutch situations.
In the game immediately after that one, Arkansas lost 9-1 to the TSFWCDAO Grinders, meaning that the Razorbacks and the Rebels meet today at 9:30 AM central (again, baseball in the morning?) with hopes of avoiding elimination. Mike Mayers will be on the bump for the Rebels, while Scooter McDooderson will toss for Arkansas. I don't know if any of you still care at this point after yesterday's humiliation, but if you do, the open thread is ready for you.
***EVEN OLDER STOP READING NOW***
Crawl out of bed, pour yourself a tall cup of the blackest coffee you can brew, scramble yourself a pair of eggs and butter up some toast, because you're going to need to be wide awake to follow the action of the first day of the 2012 SEC Baseball tournament, which begins this morning at 9:30 AM when our #9 seeded Ole Miss Rebels face the #4 seed Kentucky Wildcats.
We'll be sending our ace, Bobby Wahl (6-2, 2.20 ERA), to the bump. The strategy here is quite obvious: do whatever it takes to win this first game. Kentucky will be pitching freshman lefty A.J. Reed who, at 6'4" and 230 pounds, can be an imposing presence on the mound. On the year, Reed has pitched 36.0 innings over 13 appearances with five starts during midweek action, earning a 4-1 record and compiling a 3.00 ERA. He pitched against our Rebels in the Saturday game of the series in Lexington back in early April, going 2.1 innings with three hits, one earned run, and two strikeouts.
After the Ole Miss vs. Kentucky tournament opening matchup, the games for the remainder of day one are as follows:
- #6 Arkansas vs. #7 State at a time too be announced (so probably a half-hourish after our game's conclusion)
- #3 Florida vs. #10 Auburn at 5:30 p.m.
- #5) Vanderbilt vs. #8 Georgia at, again, a time to be announced
For those of you who just may be in Hoover - the worst possible place to host this event, in the opinion of the Cup - don't be strangers. We'll be on Twitter all day so if you see anything of note, tweet it our way (text, photos, videos, whatever) and we'll do the retweetin'.
Hotty Toddy!