Finally, we have arrived at the championship series of the 2022 College World Series.
On Thursday, we saw Ole Miss take down SEC West Rival Arkansas by a 2-0 score. The story of the game was how lights out Dylan DeLucia was. If the Rebel ace was nasty on Saturday against Auburn, he was downright filthy on Thursday. DeLucia pitched a complete-game shutout to send the Razorbacks packing and Ole Miss to the championship series. He did not walk a single batter and only allowed four hits while racking up seven strikeouts. He left it all out on the field, throwing 113 pitches to get the victory.
After getting the win, the biggest thing that he accomplished was saving the Ole Miss bullpen. We saw Josh Mallitz, who I expected to see first out of the Rebel bullpen, warming up, but he was not called upon because DeLucia was so good. Now, the Rebels will turn its attention to Oklahoma in a best-of-three set to determine who the 2022 national champions are.
Let’s break down the first game of the championship series:
Ole Miss vs. Oklahoma @ 6:00 PM CT
Tonight, Ole Miss will not go with its number two starter. Instead, sophomore righty Jack Doughtery will take the mound. Dougherty’s numbers do not really jump off the page at you. He is 3-3 on the season with a 5.08 ERA. He has 55 strikeouts to 15 walks in 39 innings pitched. He clearly has the ability to limit walks while accumulating strikeouts. While the season-long numbers may not stick out with Dougherty, he has looked strong recently. Over his last 12 innings pitched, Dougherty has only allowed 10 hits and five walks while not allowing a run. He last allowed a run on April 30th at Arkansas. In that span, he has 13 strikeouts as well, so the Rebels will be hoping he can continue that trend.
It will be intriguing to see how much length Dougherty can give Ole Miss. He has only pitched longer than 3.2 innings once this season, and that was back in March against Auburn when he went five decent innings in a victory. How long can he go for Ole Miss? Can he stretch to four or five solid innings and hand the ball over to Josh Mallitz and the Rebel bullpen? We just do not know that answer, but with opponents hitting .285 off the sophomore this year, I am willing to bet we will know pretty quickly whether he has it tonight or not.
Oklahoma will start Jake Bennett in tonight’s matchup. The Sooners clearly have an advantage with the starts as lefty Jake Bennett sports a 10-3 record with a 3.66 ERA this season. In his 110.2 innings pitched this season, he has 123 strikeouts and just 22 walks. Opponents are hitting .234 off the lefty.
His last couple of outings have been somewhat average. He gave up eight hits and walked two in seven innings in Blacksburg against Virginia Tech, allowing four runs with only one of those being earned. Then, last Friday, he gave up four earned runs on five hits to Texas A&M in his first outing in Omaha.
When examining the starters, it is clear that Oklahoma has an advantage in the first game of this series. Bennett has been more consistent over the length of the season. He is also more prepared to give Oklahoma length. We also know that Ole Miss has struggled somewhat with lefties, and Bennett is a lefty.
Both offenses like to work counts. Oklahoma has tough outs all the way down the lineup. The toughest portion of the lineup has been Peyton Graham, Jimmy Crooks and Tanner Tredaway. Combine that with the extra day of rest and the advantage on the mound, things are definitely stacking up in Oklahoma’s favor on paper.
Oklahoma likes to push the envelope on offense. They like to play a little bit of small ball. They like to run on the base paths. However, Ole Miss has a phenom defensive catcher in Hayden Dunhurst. Dunhurst probably has the second-best arm behind the plate of any of the backstops in Omaha behind Auburn’s Nate LaRue. The Rebel catcher does a good job controlling the running game, throwing out over a third of would-be base stealers. We already saw him have a strong back pick against Auburn to get Blake Rambusch. Can he control Oklahoma’s running game?
We have seen this Ole Miss offense get hot when it needs to be. They manufactured a couple of runs on Thursday, but they have huge outbursts as well. They can certainly hit the long ball, led by captain Tim Elko and shortstop Jacob Gonzalez.
The most intriguing thing to watch will be how Mike Bianco manages his pitching staff. Do you sell out for a win if Dougherty gives you a quality start? Do you turn it over to your studs in the pen? If you don’t get a good start out of Dougherty, do you somewhat pack it in and live to fight with your two studs in the next two games?
It feels weird to say, but this one feels like Oklahoma absolutely has to take advantage. It may even be a “must-win” with Ole Miss’s stud starters waiting in the next couple of games. I really like how this one stacks up for them, and they have been hot as well. I think Oklahoma will sneak out a win in the first game of this series.