Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

2022 CWS Finals: Ole Miss Wins!

2 comments

Ole Miss wins! Photo via Getty

Here’s how the finals between Ole Miss and Oklahoma played out:

  • Game 1 Ole Miss opted to go with a “bullpen game” instead of putting out their predicted starter on shorter rest, and it ended up paying off in spades. Reliever Jack Dougherty got the call. And he delivered, throwing 5 perfect innings to start the game before tiring in the 6th. Meanwhile Ole Miss’ bats delivered and put the game away in the 8th with back-to-back-to-back homers to win Game 1 10-3.
  • Game 2 saw a classic starter battle, as Ole Miss’ Hunter Elliott threw a solid 6ip 2run game, and Oklahoma’s Cade Horton was out of this world, striking out 13 in 7 1/3 innings. However, Horton ran out of gas, and Oklahoma’s bullpen absolutely imploded, giving up 3 runs in the 8th to seal their fate.

Your 2022 College World Series Champion: Ole Miss. They win their first ever CWS title, the year after Mississippi State wins their first. Great period for the southern state, a stalwart of baseball for decades. And they win without even getting to their ace starter. Amazing. Most pundits think Ole Miss was one of the last teams into this field of 64 (based on a losing SEC record and struggles during the latter part of the season), and now they’re champs.


This concludes the College Baseball season and our coverage of it for 2022.  I’ll post one more post that covers draftees and signing status for all local-connected players (prep and college) once the draft happens in mid July.


CWS links/resources

2022 CWS coverage:

Written by Todd Boss

June 27th, 2022 at 10:32 am

Posted in College/CWS

2 Responses to '2022 CWS Finals: Ole Miss Wins!'

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to '2022 CWS Finals: Ole Miss Wins!'.

  1. Ole Miss won the final round without even getting to their ace. Impressive depth in their pitching staff, and in their lineup.

    It should be noted that Ole Miss was #1 in the national at one point in March, so everyone knew the talent was there. They just fell apart for the few weeks and had to put everything back together again. They also have the potential 1/1 pick in 2023, Jacob Gonzalez. (His BA fell to .273 in 2022, but his 50/32 BB/SO ratio is impressive. Obviously he wasn’t given much to hit this season.) (And yes, it’s not too early for the lottery-bound Nats to start looking at the 2023 draft board.)

    Add Tim Elko to the list of guys I’d love to see the Nats take a flyer on in rounds 5-10 of 2022. He’s not in the MLB.com top 200, and he does strike out a lot (84 times in 65 games), but he has a platinum clutch and 40 homers over the last two seasons. He seems to have a lot of Justin Turner in him.

    KW

    27 Jun 22 at 10:43 am

  2. Neither Ivan Melendez of Texas nor Sonny DiChiara of Auburn did much in the CWS, but I’m still interested in them as draft prospects for the Nats. Yes, DiChiara looks like he just waddled over from the beer league, but he has a fantastic eye at the plate to go with prodigious power.

    As I’ve noted before, power has become such a big part of the game that it would seem to make sense to draft a lot of boppers in the hope of finding one or two who might actually make it. Yes, they’re more likely to turn into Drew Mendoza than Pete Alonso, but you never know. (The Nats passed on Alonso in the second round in 2016, as well as Bryan Reynolds and Bo Bichette, to take . . . the immortal Shedon Neuse. Alonso signed for just $9K more than Neuse.)

    KW

    27 Jun 22 at 11:55 am

Leave a Reply