Mustard Buzzards.
Hardy Street High School.
That sort of nice McAlister’s Deli on the way to the beach.
There’s not many reasons for us to look below I-20 within the state borders very often in regards to athletics, but baseball gives us a reason to acknowledge Southern Miss annually.
The Golden Eagles fly into Oxford with a big fat No. 14 ranking beside its name — that’s almost as good as being No. 4 according to extensive research done by OMTB.
Rankings aside, you can always expect this to be a game that Southern Miss would literally go to the ends of the earth to win. Imagine being flat broke in Vegas, you’ve sold your airplane tickets back home for cash, you still have to get back because you have a job and you are staring at your family heirloom wedding band in the lobby of a pawn shop thinking it’s time to get back in the game.
THIS is Southern Miss baseball when they’re playing Ole Miss.
The projected starter for Ole Miss is Jordan Fowler who has worked his way into a more prominent mid-week role for the Rebels. Fowler has been pitching on Wednesday match-ups typically with Houston Roth taking the mound on Tuesdays. But, true freshman Fowler is sporting a ridiculous 1.93(!) earned run average and a spotless 3-0 record going into Tuesday’s tilt with the Brass Pigeons.
Southern Miss has gone with Walker Powell in most of its mid-week games, but he pitched Sunday, leaving J.C. Keys (1-2, 6.59 ERA) to toe the rubber for the Eagles tonight. Offensively, Southern Miss has done a really nice job of seeing the ball so far this season, putting up a .297 team batting average and scoring nearly nine runs per game.
They’ll most likely have five players in the line-up batting over .300 when the Rebels take the field Tuesday. And they’re not shy when it comes to hitting ‘em where they ain’t neither. Luke Reynolds (6), Hunter Slater (4) and Matt Wallner (5) tote the offensive load in terms of dingers, though I hear none of them believe a hot dog is a sandwich.
This series has been a wild one as of late. The Rebs won both games last year, winning in Hattiesburg AND in Pearl, which was the first time Ole Miss had swept the Buzzards in eight years. Speaking of the Buzzards of Mustard, they are 10-4 since 2011 and have won three straight at Swayze Field. So, yeah, this series is cray.
The Twitter machine has been spitting out some interesting back and forth between our Right Field fam and Southern Miss outfielder Mason Irby.
I happen to know Southern Miss’s probably right fielder for this week personally. @mason_irby over all good dude. White guy with jerry curls though. He also had this to say. pic.twitter.com/5DrZ52tUII
— Right Field Heckler (@RFhater) March 26, 2018
The gauntlet has kind of been thrown down here, Right Field. Ball is in your court.
First pitch: 6:30 p.m. CT
TV: NONE
Online streaming: SECN+
Game-time weather: 70°, cloudy, 10% chance of rain
Projected pitchers
Ole Miss: LHP Jordan Fowler (3-0, 1.93 ERA)
USM: RHP J.C. Keys, Jr. (1-2, 6.59)