What Mike Bianco Said After Run-Rule Loss at Vanderbilt

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The No. 3 Ole Miss Rebels started SEC play on a sour note on Thursday night, falling to the No. 6 Vanderbilt Commodores 12-2 in an eight-inning run-rule.

Ole Miss committed four errors in the game, and its pitching was not sharp enough to counter a strong night at the plate from the Commodores. Rebels head coach Mike Bianco was made available to the media after the game, and here's what he had to say on his team's performance.

Opening statement:

"Just a tough night. I said to our guys prior to the game, and you guys have heard me say, when you match up with somebody's ace, the best way to offset that is your ace has to put up some zeros. Unfortunately, we didn't give Jack [Dougherty] a chance tonight. Just too many errors and too many baserunners. Had to make him work harder than it needed to be.

"Once Carter Holton got a lead, you could tell he could really bear down. I thought, offensively, we did well against him early on. About as well as you could being what he is now: a true ace in the SEC. Disappointing at the end just to finish the game that way and couldn't get off the field."

On the reason for the multitude of errors:

"On turf, the ball is a lot truer. Uncharacteristic of us. We've played so good defensively for a month now. Usually, errors are sometimes going to come as "weird" or "dumb" errors with pickoff plays or a stolen base where the catcher throws it into the outfield. These were four infield plays that the guys have made."

On Vanderbilt starter Carter Holton:

"He's got a big-time fastball and a really hard breaking ball. Third time through, he's mixing in some changeups. I thought we did a good job against him. I really did. It's hard to say when you only score two through six, but we didn't have some great fortune. Kemp smoked a ball and hit it too good. Didn't get under it enough. With the way the wind was blowing tonight, it would have gotten way out of here. Their guy makes a tremendous play in left field. He just doesn't give you anything. Doesn't walk people. He's good."

On Mitch Murrell's performance in relief:

"I thought he was really good. Probably his best night of the year. He was able to use the changeup more tonight and the slider. It's unfortunate because of the situation we were in. Backed up in the first night of the series with a four-run deficit, we didn't want to go to the bullpen and bring anybody else in. We were seeing if we could squeeze one more inning out of him, and, unfortunately, we couldn't."

You can follow John Macon on Twitter at @JMakeGillespie.

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