Ole Miss' Riley Maddox Credits In-Game Adjustment For Improved Saturday Outing

Ole Miss right-handed pitcher Riley Maddox made an in-game adjustment to his delivery that helped his mechanics in a win over Wright State.

Ole Miss RHP Riley Maddox throws a pitch against Wright State at Swayze Field in Oxford, Miss., on March 1, 2025. | Ole Miss Athletics

OXFORD -- Much like Hunter Elliott on Friday, Ole Miss pitcher Riley Maddox struggled at times with command in the Rebels' 8-3 win over Wright State on Saturday. But towards the end of his outing, he seemed to find a rhythm.

Maddox issued four walks early on Saturday, and although the Raiders were unable to capitalize offensively on those baserunners, having extra traffic on the basepaths makes things difficult for a pitcher. After the game, Maddox was made available to the media where he discussed what changed in the latter portions of his five innings of work.

According to the righty, pitching coach Joel Mangrum gave him some adjustments in the dugout.

"I was struggling there for a little bit," Maddox said. "The four walks in those two innings were tough. I kind of lost it mechanically, was overthinking things, going too fast, but thanks to Joel, he kind of gave me an adjustment there. I tried it in my warmup pitches, and it worked pretty good. In that fourth and fifth inning, I was rolling."

What Mangrum was able to pinpoint was an issue in Maddox's delivery to the plate. The smallest tweaks can sometimes make the biggest difference for a pitcher, and that seemed to be the case for Maddox on Saturday who only allowed two hits and struck out five men.

"Just some mechanical things," Maddox said. "I wasn't getting my leg up too high. Need to get that up higher and stay tilted, more back in my delivery. Just some pitching things, and it was an easy fix."

Through the first two games in this weekend series against Wright State, Rebel starting pitchers have walked nine batters, but neither Elliott nor Maddox have been tabbed for any runs. It's obviously not a good thing for a pitcher to issue a lot of free passes, but both Ole Miss arms have both shown an ability to work around those issues and keep the Raiders off the board.

Wright State has not been able to muster any runs so far this weekend until facing the Rebel bullpen, and by then, the game has largely been decided.

"I think that's big. That's something I didn't do last year a lot," Maddox said of working around base traffic. "I finally made some good pitches here and there and some good defensive plays and some things that have gone my way, so it's pretty cool to see that happening."

The Rebels will go for the sweep of Wright State on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. CT.