Ole Miss vs. Mississippi State 2018: Game times, online streaming, and preview

Our National Pastime sons are coming off quite the shellacking of the Memphis Tigers on Wednesday and are now preparing for another rivalry game against the lowly Mississippi State Bulldogs. The No. 3 Ole Miss Rebels (26-4, 6-3) will be looking to win yet another road series against a Bulldogs (15-15, 2-7) team that is searching for some form of excitement and consistency.

After losing their coach three games into the season, it hasn’t gotten much better for the Cowbells. Aside from a brand new stadium that is nice, their first 30 games have been, well, shit. They have had some incredibly bad losses and are currently sitting at No. 91 in Warren Nolan’s RPI ranking.

• No. 105 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
• No. 161 McNeese State
• No. 144 Utah Valley
• No. 127 Southeastern Louisiana

Now, baseball is a weird game and anything can happen (to a certain extent). But those losses are inexcusable and are a sign of a team in very, very bad shape. There are only two hitters on the team over the .300 mark, and just one in SEC play. They’re slugging .356 as a team, sporting an on-base percentage of .347 and have struck out 231 times in 30 games.

For comparison, the Rebs have seven players hitting over .300, five over .300 and one over .400 in conference play. Ole Miss is slugging .482 as a team, and are getting on base at a .388 clip. And they’ve only struck out 179 times in 30 games. They’re back up to a .300 average as a team again while State is a mere .256, good for last in the Southeastern Conference.

Jake Mangum (.328, 10 2B, .411 on-base) is the household name everyone knows and he is going to get his. Josh Hatcher (.297, 11 RBI, .405 slugging) and Hunter Stovall (.289, 14 RBI, .372 slugging) are the other two folks to know in their lineup who could potentially give the Rebs fits. Other than that, there’s not much meat on that proverbial bone.

On the mound, Konnor Pilkington is good and will challenge the Ole Miss lineup. He sports a 2.61 ERA and strikes out a lot of dudes, mostly looking. He’s 5th in the conference in strikeouts (54) and first in backwards K’s (25). Other than that, the pitching staff is pretty, pretty bad. Their team earned run average is 3.52 and aside from their starters, their bullpen is practically empty thanks to poor performances and injuries.

All that said, they still have to play the games. And Ole Miss would certainly like to return the favor from last year. State has won five-straight games against Ole Miss, a streak that began in the 2016 Governor’s Cup game in stupid Pearl, Miss., a black hole for anything positive. The bad guys have also won the last two regular-season series against Ole Miss, including a sweep in Oxford last year.

Can the Rebs return the favor? They should. And just might. This Ole Miss team is different, incredibly deep in all phases, and seems to be playing with a chip on their shoulder. If they have aspirations to get a national seed and make it deep into the summer, they need to not only win this series, they need to sweep.

2013 Vanderbilt sweeps this series. 2000 South Carolina sweeps this series. 2017 Florida sweeps this series.

Can 2018 Ole Miss do it?

The numbers

Complete Ole Miss stats | Complete Mississippi State stats

How to watch

Saturday (game one)

First pitch: 12 p.m. CT
TV: NONE
Online streaming: SECN+
Game-time weather: 41°, thunderstorms, 90% chance of rain
Projected pitchers
Ole Miss: RHP Brady Feigl (6-1, 2.23 ERA)
MSU: LHP Konnor Pilkington (1-4, 2.61 ERA)

Saturday (game two)

First pitch: 45 minutes after game one
TV: NONE
Online streaming: SECN+
Game-time weather: 47°, cloudy, 20% chance of rain
Projected pitchers
Ole Miss: LHP Ryan Rolison (3-3, 3.63 ERA)
MSU: LHP Ethan Small (2-2, 2.41 ERA)

Sunday

First pitch: 1 p.m. CT
TV: NONE
Online streaming: SECN+
Game-time weather: 61°, sunny, 10% chance of rain
Projected pitchers
Ole Miss: RHP James McArthur (4-0, 2.38 ERA)
MSU: RHP Jacob Billingsley (2-2, 3.73 ERA)