South vs. West?

SEC vs. Pac-10?

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Sorry, just thinking about that made me drool on my keyboard and I had to wipe it off.

Ole Miss (40-23) is a team that's been knocking on Omaha's door two seasons in row, but can't get it open. The Rebels lost the supers at home in 2005 to eventual champ Texas, then repeated that last year against Miami. Worse, both years they won the series opener, then dropped two in row.

"Inconsistent" is the most overused word in baseball, but that's what the Rebels have been. Ole Miss lost three-game SEC series to no-bid teams LSU, Kentucky, and Tennessee, but won series against heavyweights South Carolina, Mississippi State, and Arkansas.

The Rebels' strength is on the mound. They have a great 1-2 punch in Will Kline (7-2, 3.72 ERA, 127 Ks in 116 innings) and Lance Lynn (8-4, 2.55, 137 Ks in 116.1 innings and a .205 opponents batting average). The entire Ole Miss staff has allowed opposing hitters to bat only .238, good for 7th in the nation.

Ole Miss will need solid pitching, because their offense isn't very imposing. LF Justin (.385) and RF Jordan Henry (.375) lead the Rebs in batting average, but the brothers have combined for only one home run. SS Zack Cozart was the team's only All-SEC first teamer, but he started the season in a funk and overall his offensive numbers (.304, 5 HR) were disappointing.

Bad sign for Ole Miss... 11-10 road record.

Ole Miss stats

Arizona State? Wow.

Wow.

Man.

Jeez.

Where to start first? Let's try on a .351 team batting average, tops in the nation; a .439 team on-base percentage, also first nationally; a .539 team slugging percentage, 3rd nationally; and a nation's-best 570 runs scored in 59 games. Boyd Nation estimates that Packard Stadium inflates offense by 20%, but having every starter batting over .300 and having six starters batting .349+ is still obscene. The most obscene Devil is 1B Brett Wallace, who leads the Pac-10 in... well, just about everything. He's batting .420, has 15 homers and 74 RBI, slugs .712, has walked 37 times, and has even stolen 11 bases. C Petey Paramore sports a .393 batting average, and 49 walks push his on-base percentage to a ridiculous .513. 2B Eric Sogard bats .390, and has 10 homers and 17 steals. DH Kiel Rolling has 15 homers, 63 ribbies, and a .374 batting average. And jeez, I haven't even mentioned OF Ike Davis, who joined those four guys on the All-Pac-10 team.

Considering those previously-mentioned park effects, the most impressive numbers the Devils have put up have come from their starting pitching. Josh Satow (12-3, 2.56 ERA, and 112 Ks in 123 innings), freshman Mike Leake (13-1, 3.58 ERA in 110.2 innings), and Brian Flores (10-1, 3.80 ERA in 116 innings) have all posted incredible numbers in a great hitters' park. Satow is the most fun to watch. All three of them are small guys, but even Satow's listed physicals of 5'9", 150 pounds might be exaggerated, and he throws junk, junk, and more junk that no one seems to be able to hit.

You can figure out the team's biggest weakness by looking at those three pitchers' numbers -- they've combined to pitch 340 of the team's total 525 innings. There's not much behind them. Only closer Jason Jarvis pitched more than 6.1 innings of relief in Pac-10 play. Getting into the Devils' bullpen is your best chance to beat them.

Even with that thin staff, ASU has won 25 of 28 and 12 of their last 13. Included in that more recent streak were three-game sweeps of Oregon State (on the road) and UCLA, two teams that are still playing.

The Devils are 32-3 at home, so it would be pretty crazy to bet against them this weekend.

ASU stats

This series runs Saturday-Monday, with game times at 6 p.m., 4 p.m., and 4 p.m. Thanks for the early start times, ESPN, because forecasted highs are around 100 degrees.

But hey, it's a dry heat.