OXFORD — If there is a method to prepare for what Jake Mangum did on Saturday, he doesn’t know what it is. Just as well, since he wouldn’t have had time to do it anyway.

Center fielder Jake Mangum, in the aftermath of Mississippi State baseball’s yearlong pitching injury problems, has been called upon to start Sunday games on the mound — on top of the reigning Southeastern Conference batting champion’s duties as the team’s leadoff hitter. In his three starts in that role, he has never been asked to give MSU more than three innings and has never thrown more than 45 pitches, returning to a more natural designated hitter role afterward.

Then he took the mound against Ole Miss.

Mangum threw five innings and 73 pitches on Saturday, allowing just two hits and one run as MSU (19-10, 6-3 SEC) beat Ole Miss 2-1 for its first sweep of the Rebels (16-12, 3-6 SEC) since 2003, also in Oxford. The win followed Friday’s 5-3 victory.

“Jake Mangum is one of the very best baseball players in America,” MSU coach Andy Cannizaro said, “he’s one of the best athletes on the baseball field in America and I love putting the ball in his hand because he finds a way to get it done: he doesn’t overthink it, he’s not trying to be too fine.”

Mangum retreated to the locker room after celebrating the win with friends and family, then reemerged to proclaim himself as feeling, “dead.”

“That’s the most pitches I’ve thrown in a long time,” Mangum added, “so we’ll see how I feel in the morning.”

Thanks to his primary position in the field and at the plate, Mangum gets to pay very little attention to his pitching: he said he threw just a short bullpen this week, as few as 10 pitches. There was never a plan for Mangum to pitch as long as he did — Mangum said it was a simple inning-by-inning approach that stretched him into the leadoff batter of the sixth inning.

Cannizaro said he managed the situation with constant communication, plus getting Mangum to sit down in the shade whenever he could. The conversations always ended with the same refrain.

“He knows I’m always going to shoot him straight, and he’s going to shoot me straight. He kept saying he was fine, he was fine and he wanted to go back out there,” Cannizaro said.

Cannizaro added he checked with pitching coach Gary Henderson before sending Mangum to the mount for the sixth, ultimately deciding to test Mangum’s rhythm one more time.

Being on the field of the in-state rival helped.

“Playing here was a big deal to me. A really big deal,” Mangum said. “I’m really glad we got this sweep. It’s a big deal to me.”

Staying effective that late in the unchartered waters of the fourth and fifth innings, as taxing as they were, was a simple process. Mangum said he was throwing a lot of curveballs early in the start — for no reason other than, “it was working,” — but moved into a heavier concentration of fastballs as he wore on. It showed, as he threw just three balls in retiring the fifth in order.

Cannizaro saw Mangum change his arm slot at times with his fastball, adding another layer to the pitch that got him through the final six outs. Before exiting the game with the leadoff walk in the sixth, Mangum retired 10 batters in a row, going back to the final out of the second.

Meanwhile, MSU’s bats were giving Mangum, albeit slim, run support. First baseman Brent Rooker tied the game in the third with an RBI double — the SEC’s leader in both of those statistics — that scored catcher Josh Lovelady after his leadoff single. The Bulldogs took the lead in the next frame with Lovelady’s sacrifice fly that scored second baseman Cody Brown after his leadoff double.

The MSU bullpen continued its resurgent weekend, pitching the final four innings of the game in scoreless fashion to finish the weekend with 16 2/3 innings pitched and just three runs allowed for an earned run average of 1.62.

Spencer Price recorded the final three outs to earn his ninth save of the season, earning the save in all three games of the series, but it was Rooker that saved Price.

Price took over for Riley Self with a runner on first and no outs after a leadoff single. Another single, a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk loaded the bases, putting the tying run on third and the game-winning run at second in the form of pinch runner Bryce Blaum.

A pop-up to third baseman Luke Alexander put the Bulldogs one out away from the win when a hard hit ball near the right field line was grabbed by Rooker as he squatted to the ground, spun and recovered in time to reach the bag a step before Tim Rowe to end the game. Rooker was mobbed by Bulldogs storming out of the dugout in the celebration.

“He was hooking some balls foul earlier, and I knew Spencer was going to give him sliders, I knew were weren’t going to give him a fastball to hit,” Rooker said. “Being a big lefty with some pop, I figured he was going to hit one hard at either me or (Brown, the second baseman), and I was able to react and it found the glove.”

Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson