Who’s going to pitch for Southern Miss? Here’s a look at the projected rotation
Southern Miss baseball isn’t getting much love in the preseason polls with most outlets leaving the Golden Eagles out of their early top 25 despite the team making five straight appearances in NCAA regionals.
The reason for the exclusion and possible overlooking is what USM is bringing, or not bringing, to the mound in 2022.
The Golden Eagles lost its top two starting pitchers, both 2021 All-Americans, and its No. 1 bullpen arm from a year ago. The losses of Hunter Stanley, Walker Powell and Ryan Och are a big hit to a team that had the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in the country last season.
The trio combined to throw 226 innings of baseball last year and were a major part of the Golden Eagles run to regionals. As a team, USM had the sixth best WHIP in the country at 1.17 with Stanley, Powell and Och leading the way.
With them gone, head coach Scott Berry and pitching coach Christian Ostrander have sizable gaps in their pitching staff to fill ahead of another campaign. The open spots don’t concern them much, though.
“Talking to (Ostrander), he feels really good about the pitching staff,” Berry said during media day. “He feels really good about that depth.”
Southern Miss has 13 pitchers returning from last year’s team with eight newcomers tacked on. The Golden Eagles have two starters from last season back plus a graduate transfer who logged 115 innings pitched in 2021.
The depth certainly isn’t lacking in the staff. It also helps the Conference USA schedule has reverted back to three-game weekends after playing four-game series last season.
Projected rotation
Weekend starters
- RHP Ben Ethridge
The first man to get the call on the mound this season could be the third-year sophomore Ethridge. An All-Conference pick a year ago, the Collinsville native followed up a great 2020 with a breakout year in 2021.
Ethridge had a rough go of it in regionals but has strong stuff that he’s looking to get back to. During one particular stretch last spring, Ethridge pitched three consecutive seven-inning shutout starts against Western Kentucky, Rice and Middle Tennessee. He allowed just 10 hits and two walks across those 21 innings. His season WHIP of 1.04 is the best returning figure on the staff.
- LHP Drew Boyd
The home-grown lefty waited a long time to get his chance. Boyd joined the program in 2018 and did not throw a pitch until 2020. He cracked the rotation last year as the fourth weekend starter and performed well on the back end of the rotation.
Boyd has excellent command and contributed greatly to USM’s nation-leading K-BB ratio. In three straight starts against Rice, Middle Tennessee and Florida Atlantic, Boyd struck out 16 batters in 18 innings and walked none.
- RHP Hunter Riggins
A graduate transfer from Delta State, Riggins has a good shot at being on the first weekend rotation USM rolls out against North Alabama. He led the Gulf South Conference in innings pitched last year and left the school with a career ERA of 2.56.
Riggins has allowed just 0.3 home runs per nine innings over the course of his college career, a number that will play well in the more pitcher-friendly confines of Pete Taylor Park.
“(Riggins) brings all kinds of experience and it shows,” Berry said. “Not only with his pitching ability, but his composure and presence on the mound is, to me, a lot like Walker Powell out there.”
Weekday starters
Southern Miss has 12 games that fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday this year against familiar regional opponents. The Golden Eagles played only six such games last year due to the conference-play workload and went just 1-5 in those contests.
Pitching depth may actually work more in USM’s favor this season when it comes to midweek games. The staff had to put a weekend starter on the mound multiple times in the middle of the week last year, but Berry doesn’t need to do that this time around with the options the team has.
- RHP Tanner Hall
Hall ended an up-and-down 2021 season with a masterful five innings of work against Ole Miss in Oxford in which he allowed just one baserunner. He did leave the year with an inflated 5.02 ERA but all the underlying numbers point to a potential breakout season.
“I will never doubt Tanner Hall when he takes the mound that he’ll give us a chance to win,” Berry said. “His competitive makeup put him there, in my mind, as a really good candidate to go out and give us a chance to win, whatever role we ask him to play... He’s certainly one of our better pitchers who is going to see a lot of action for us this year.”
- RHP Hurston Waldrep
Waldrep was a valuable second option behind Och in the back of the bullpen last year. He closed out a Regional victory over Florida State and ended the year with a 3.31 ERA. When Waldrep keeps it in the strike zone, he’s hard to hit. His opponent batting average of .217 last season leads all returning arms. An improved command could mean a big step forward for the Georgia native.
“We’ve kind of tested (Waldrep) as a starter,” Berry said. “Tried to build him up, see how he does two times through the lineup there in the fall.”
Projected bullpen
Southern Miss may not have to deal with as much of a drop off among the starting pitchers as some would suggest, but the bullpen is a bit of a different game.
Both Hall and Waldrep could fall into the swingman role with the two making weekday starts and appearances out of the bullpen on Saturday or Sunday. But without the dominant Och, USM needs to find the next go-to finisher out of the arm barn.
- RHP Tyler Stuart
The big righty struggled initially in his first bit of action at USM but settled down and started to find a groove during conference play. Stuart played a little summer ball in the Cape Cod League where he threw six scoreless innings. Stuart will have an opportunity as a starter, as well.
- LHP Chandler Best
Another pitcher who settled in a bit as the season wore on was Chandler Best. The sophomore had a season ERA of 5.50. If you look at his last six appearances only, that number drops to 3.24.
- RHP Mathew Adams
Adams is another young pitcher who got some work out of the pen last year and showed flashes of his ability. Adams had eight outings out of 12 in which he didn’t allow a run, including a scoreless, three-strikeout inning tossed against Alabama.
The above five will figure into the bullpen with significant roles if one or two don’t squeeze their way onto a weekend spot. A group of others including Aubrey Gillentine, Garrett Ramsey and Justin Storm could see an uptick in innings pitched, as well.
Shortstop Dustin Dickerson will also get a few more looks on the mound this season as a deep bullpen option. Dickerson made his first appearance last year in the conference tournament against Louisiana Tech, allowing three runs in the ninth inning.
The staff easily had the best team ERA in Conference USA a year ago at 3.68. That may climb and hover between 4.00 and 4.15 this year, but will still remain one of the best pitching staffs in the league if not still the best.
There’s plenty of experience at the top and loads of breakout potential in the middle of the pen. Opponents will still have to gameplan around a deep staff every week.
Flamethrowers on the mound
Velocities are picking up at every level of baseball and the hard-throwing pitching style has quickly filled the USM roster. Multiple pitchers are cruising past the low 90’s on their fastball and hitting 95 mph or even higher.
The Golden Eagle hitters have noticed the sudden influx of power arms over the offseason workouts.
“It’s incredible how much the game has changed,” Outfielder Gabe Montenegro said. “Our pitchers, they’re really good. We have a good pitching staff. It’s been tough getting adapted to that high velocity.”
Among the stronger arms is the aforementioned Waldrep. The right-hander had been known to sit in the mid-90’s but touched 99 in in the spring multiple times. While Waldrep is a candidate for a starting role, he’s a lock to draw some crowd reactions throughout the year.
Stuart, another arm with starting potential, has been working with a fastball that can reach up to 96 on the gun.
This story was originally published February 7, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
