Derek Diamond Credits Doug Nikhazy, Fastball Work for New Friday Night Role

Derek Diamond is talented, but he is working to become a better pitcher entering 2022 with a newfound role at his disposal.

Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco officially named Diamond the team's Opening Day starter on the mound, and he gives credit to former teammate Doug Nikhazy and some offseason work that made that possible.

"There's been a ton of growth from guys on our staff," Diamond said. "Personally, there's the physical things. I want to improve the spin on my fastball and my slider to be more of a put-away pitch. Above all of that, I learned something really special from Doug Nikhazy, and that's playing baseball.

"That's what we're doing out here," Diamond continued. "Watching [Nikhazy] play, he'd chew his bubble gum, hate the other team and go pitch against them. I think we're going to be better in a lot of areas."

One of the areas that Diamond mentioned is improvement of his fastball. He has shown the ability to hit the high 90s with his four-seamer, but his work this offseason has been primarily on improving location and movement with that pitch.

"You wouldn't think the fastball is such a complicated pitch, but it is," Diamond said. "We work with a lot of analytics devices, and pretty soon after I came here, I switched to just a four-seam fastball. You want to generate a ride on your fastball."

Diamond again credited some of this development to Nikhazy who, although he did not light up the radar guns while at Ole Miss, was able to make his fastball effective.

"You look at a guy like Doug who throws 88-89, and it looks like he's throwing 99," Diamond said. "In the fall, I had two goals: throw my fastball more and make it more effective. I worked on the spin, and I was able to move it around."

Another key with pitching is location. Diamond stated that in high school many pitchers are taught to stay low in the zone, but that strategy doesn't always translate to the collegiate level.

"When you face really good SEC hitters, some of them like to drop the head on that low pitch," Diamond said, "so you've just got to move it around. I saw a lot of improvement just working on a few things."

Although Diamond was a part of the COVID-shortened 2020 season at Ole Miss, he and other players echoed that 2021 was their real "first year" at the collegiate level as they tasted their first SEC action.

"Last year was really our first year," Diamond said. "The year 2020 seemed like a fairy tale. I did well, but we were playing Xavier and Princeton. Last year, going through the gauntlet of the SEC taught us all a bunch. We have an older team this year, and I think that experience can only help."

Many of Ole Miss players and even head coach Mike Bianco have stated that they believe this year's pitching staff has more depth than the 2021 group, even with the departure of Gunnar Hoglund and Nikhazy from the rotation.

"I think one of the issues last year is that we were top-heavy," Diamond said. "We had Gunnar and Doug who were monsters, but for some guys like Brandon Johnson or Jack Dougherty, the weekend rotation was set. This year, it's been very competitive. We're going to be really good through the back end."

Ole Miss opens its season on Feb. 18 at home against Charleston Southern. First pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m. CT.

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