Ole Miss baseball notes: Parker Caracci, Tyler Keenan earn SEC weekly honors
Published 1:39 pm Monday, April 2, 2018
Parker Caracci and Tyler Keenan on Monday were recognized by the Southeastern Conference for the significant roles they played in Ole Miss going 3-1 last week.
Caracci was named SEC Pitcher of the Week while Keenan was tabbed as the league’s Freshman of the Week. Keenan shared the freshman honor with LSU’s Ma’Khail Hilliard.
A third-year sophomore, Caracci continued his breakout season by saving all three of the Rebels’ wins — each of them longer than an inning. Caracci notched a five-out save in a midweek game against then-No. 14 Southern Miss before getting a combined 11 outs in saves against then-No. 5 Arkansas in the last two games of the teams’ series over the weekend. The sophomore right-hander, who has five saves in the last seven games, allowed four hits and no earned runs in 4 2/3 innings, striking out five and walking two to run his strikeout-to-walk ratio this season to 38-to-3.
Keenan, a newcomer out of Clayton, North Carolina, hit a team-best .583 last week and drove in the decisive runs in the Rebels’ 11-10 win over Arkansas on Saturday with a three-run home run in the seventh inning as part of a three-hit day. Keenan is hitting .333 on the season with four doubles, three home runs, 13 RBIs and a .449 on-base percentage.
Consensus ranking
Three wins in four games against top-15 teams has Ole Miss (25-4, 6-3 SEC) as a consensus top-5 team in America.
Ole Miss came in at No. 3 in the latest polls released by Baseball America, Perfect Game and D1Baseball.com on Monday. It’s the Rebels’ highest regular-season ranking since being No. 2 in 2008.
The Rebels came in at No. 5 in Collegiate Baseball’s latest poll. The publication had the Rebels seventh a week ago.
Midweek game postponed
Ole Miss’ midweek game at Memphis has been postponed from Tuesday to Wednesday because of the threat of inclement weather.
First pitch from AutoZone Park is still scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Ole Miss beat Memphis (9-19) in the teams’ first meeting, 8-6, in Oxford last month. Memphis enters this week losers of six straight.