Alabama visits Ole Miss for a weekend series as pitching concerns loom

There’s no way around it. It’s time for Ole Miss baseball to win some baseball games.

Halfway through the season, the No. 9 Rebels (19-9, 4-5 SEC) have 21 games of SEC play and seven non-conference contests including a game against No. 18 Southern Miss and Mississippi State. It’s a hellacious second half to put it frankly.

But for the next twelve games, Ole Miss plays Alabama in a series, Murray State, a series at South Carolina, SEMO, and a four game stretch with MSU. It’s vital for its postseason hopes to win eight or more of these games - mostly because away series at Arkansas and LSU seem very unwinnable right now.

First up though is taking care of business against an Alabama team that has not lit the world on fire by any means just yet. The Tide were swept by former No. 1 Texas, and it also has series losses to MSU and Florida on its resume.

As a team, the Tide are batting at a .292 clip with only a few regular starters above .300 for the season. This should be somewhat good news to a beleaguered Ole Miss pitching staff just looking to put together 27 outs by any means possible. And with that, here are the probables for this series.

Probable starters

Friday

Alabama: RHP Garrett McMillan, 2-2, 3.05 ERA

Ole Miss: LHP Hunter Elliott, 1-2, 2.74 ERA

Saturday

Alabama: RHP Jacob McNairy, 4-0, 4.30 ERA

Ole Miss: TBA

Sunday

Alabama: LHP Grayson Hitt, 2-0, 2.45 ERA

Ole Miss: TBA

Huge fan of TBA right now as he helped lead the Rebels to a series win over Kentucky last weekend. Hunter Elliott did look pretty sharp last weekend, and it would not be surprising to see Dylan Delucia or Jack Washburn this weekend take the bump either.

The best news however came minutes ago with the announcement of Kevin Graham back in the Rebel lineup for the first time in over a month.

Graham went down with a fractured wrist against UCF in early March, so it is possible his return will give a spark to the team desperately in need of one.