Hogs hoping for more offense
All season, the consensus has been that Arkansas’ baseball team has enough pitching to reach the College World Series for the seventh time in school history.
There also has been one big question about the Razorbacks all season, and it still remains even though the team is just two victories shy of making the trip to Omaha, Neb.
Does Arkansas have enough hitting to get there?
That question will finally be answered this weekend when Arkansas takes on Baylor in the NCAA super regional at Waco, Texas.
Arkansas (42-19) opens the best-of-3 series against Baylor (48-15) at 4 p.m. Central today at Baylor Ballpark. The teams will play at 3 p.m. Sunday, with a deciding game scheduled for 3 p.m. Monday if necessary.
The winner of the super regional advances to the College World Series, which begins June 15 in Omaha, Neb. Arkansas last played in the College World Series in 2009, when the Razorbacks went 2-2 with both losses coming against LSU, the eventual national champion.
Arkansas went 3-0 last week and won the Houston Regional despite batting only .228 as a team. The Razorbacks won their second-round game 1-0 over Rice while being held to just two hits and striking out 11 times.
Winning another game in that fashion is unlikely this weekend against Baylor, which has six regulars hitting
better than .300 and a team batting average of .312 that ranks 10th nationally.
Arkansas is hitting .277 and will open the tournament today against Baylor senior right-hander Trent Blank, who is 10-1 this season with a 2.32 earned run average.
“If we don’t match them or if we’re not better than them, we’re going to be in serious trouble,” Arkansas first baseman Dominic Ficociello said. “It’s been a roller-coaster ride for us this year, but we’ve put up 20 hits in a game and 12 runs, so we know we can do it. It’s just a matter of being locked in mentally from the first pitch of the game.”
Arkansas hopes Ficociello can get back on track after watching his average plunge from .347 to .300 over the past 21 games. That’s quite a decline for Ficociello, a slickfielding first baseman who has a career batting average of .317 in two seasons at Arkansas.
“He’s been struggling for a while, just pressing and trying to do too much,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. “You have to be more patient and really focus in on the strike zone, but that’s the beauty of baseball. You can turn it around with one swing and you’re feeling good and the next at-bat you hit a home run and you go 10 for 12.
“Maybe this is the weekend, you know?”
Arkansas should feel confident about its pitching with DJ Baxendale (7-4, 2.83 ERA) and Ryne Stanek (7-4, 2.83 ERA) starting today and Sunday against the Bears. Arkansas also has a strong bullpen led by Nolan Sanburn (4-1, 2.58 ERA), a second-round draft pick in this week’s major league draft, and Barrett Astin (3-5, 2.22 ERA), who leads the Razorbacks with 10 saves.
Also encouraging for Arkansas was last week’s performance by No. 3 starter Randall Fant (2-2, 3.26 ERA),
1 who pitched 4 ⁄ scoreless innings
3 when the Razorbacks beat Sam Houston State 5-1 to clinch the championship at the Houston Regional.
Still, Arkansas will likely need more offensive production to defeat Baylor, which won 24 consecutive games during the regular season, including 18 in a row in Big 12 Conference play.
“Any team that can run off 18 straight wins in the Big 12 — I coached in the Big 12 for five years — that is pretty impressive,” said Van Horn, who coached for five years at Nebraska and led the Cornhuskers to the College World Series in 2001 and 2002. “They are strong offensively, and they have a deep pitching staff. They are good, and it will be a big test for us to go down there and play well.”
The Razorbacks are led at the plate by Matt Reynolds, who has a .343 average with 7 home runs and 42 RBI. Leadoff hitter Tim Carver carries a .307 average, and he and Reynolds have combined to steal 29 bases on 44 attempts. Arkansas has 38 home runs, and the Razorbacks are 62 of 94 on stolen-base attempts this season.
“Thing that jumps out at you first is the quality of their arms,” Baylor Coach Steve Smith said of the Razorbacks, who have a 2.86 team ERA. “I know they’ve got good arms and very athletic guys. Dave always has good athletes. They’ll be aggressive. They’ll run, and it looks like they’ve got some power guys.”
Baylor is led by catcher Josh Ludy (.368, 15 HR, 69 RBI), the Big 12’s player of the year, and outfielders Logan Vick (.344, 2 HR, 39 RBI) and Dan Evatt (.340, 8 HR, 30 RBI). The Bears have hit 43 home runs and are 92 of 130 in stolen-base attempts.
Despite its impressive resume, Baylor was in danger of being eliminated from the NCAA Tournament last week after losing 4-2 to Oral Roberts in the first round of the Waco (Texas) Regional. Baylor showed its grit by wining four consecutive games over three days to climb out of the losers’ bracket and capture the regional championship.
Now it faces a Razorbacks team with some renewed confidence of its own.
“They always say if you’re ever going to get hot, make it in the postseason,” Baxendale said. “It’s starting to look that way for us. We’ll see if we can continue that.”