Fielders optional
TODAY’S GAME vs. No. 6 Georgia, 4:30 p.m. Central, Hoover (Ala.) Metropolitan Stadium (SEC Network)
Cronin strikes when Rebels threaten
HOOVER, Ala. — The best swings Ole Miss got on University of Arkansas closer Matt Cronin were foul balls.
Cronin struck out all four batters he faced to cap the No. 5 Razorbacks’ 5-3 victory over the No. 23 Rebels on Wednesday in the SEC Tournament at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.
The Razorbacks (41-15) advanced to the winners bracket and will play No. 6 Georgia (43-14) at 4:30 p.m. today.
Arkansas was clinging to a 4-3 lead with two outs in the top of the eighth inning, and Ole Miss had the tying run on third base and go-ahead run on first when Cronin came in and struck out pinch hitter Chase Cockrell on three pitches.
“You never know, that could have been the game right there,” Cronin said. “So I have to come in and find a way to get that out without letting anyone score.
“I think my preferred way is a strikeout, and I got that.”
After the Razorbacks added a run in the bottom of the eighth inning, Cronin struck out Thomas Dillard, Grae Kessinger and Tyler Kennan — the Rebels’ 1-2-3 hitters — on a combined 11 pitches to end the game.
“Cronin’s an electric arm,” said Dillard, who struck out swinging on a 2-2 pitch. “He has one of the best fastballs in the country.
“You have to give him credit, but when it comes down to it in the eighth and ninth, we’ve just got to have more competitive at-bats versus a guy like that.”
Cockrell pulled Cronin’s first pitch down the left-field line foul before he struck out in the eighth inning.
“The best swing he took was his first swing,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. “He hit the ball hard down the left-field line and after that, Matt just got after him.
“What we were really excited to see was it took only three pitches, so we felt good about him going back out. We were going to send him back out anyway, but that could have been a seven-pitch atbat or eight.”
Van Horn called it one of the best outings of Cronin’s career after the junior lefthander earned his 11th save this season after having 14 in 2018.
“He’s terrific,” Ole Miss Coach Mike Bianco said. “He’s got that big-time fastball and gets a lot of swings and misses.
“But it’s not just velocity. It’s a high-spin rate ball where hitters think they’re on it, but they’re not. You get blown away a lot. We weren’t very good against him.”
Cronin threw a curveball at 78 miles per hour for strike two on Keenan, the Rebels’ final batter.
“I think it was the first breaking ball I’ve thrown for a strike in about five weeks, so it definitely felt good,” Cronin said. “I was just having fun out there, trying to pound the strike zone, and it ended up going well for me.”
Van Horn said the strike on an off-speed pitch made Cronin especially effective.
“I was really excited to see him drop that curveball in there on the left-handed hitter because after that happened, you could just see a different demeanor in the body language of the hitter,” Van Horn said. “Like, ‘Wow, I thought I was just going to have to sit on fastballs,’ and now he doesn’t know what to see.
“Matt tried to drop another breaking ball in there, and then he threw the fastball right by him.”
Jack Kenley’s two-out, tworun single off Ole Miss starter Zack Phillips (4-3) scored Casey Martin and Dominic Fletcher — who walked and was hit by a pitch, respectively — to give Arkansas a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning.
“Credit to him, he’s a very good pitcher,” Kenley said. “I just knew I was going to get a fastball at some point, and he kind of hammered me in a little bit.
“The approach on him would be to stay away, try to focus on staying up the middle, and I got a pitch middle-out or so, fastball, and put it in the gap.”
Phillips, a junior lefthander from Texarkana, struck out Heston Kjerstad for the second out before what proved to be Kenley’s game-winning hit.
“I walked Martin on a 3-2 changeup,” Phillips said. “It just kind of slipped away from me. Then a fastball slipped away and I hit Fletcher.
“I almost worked myself out of it, got two outs, and then I threw a fastball inside and [Kenley] just put a really good swing on it.”
Arkansas took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Martin walked, went to second on a groundout by Matt Goodheart and scored on Fletcher’s single.
Jacob Nesbit led off the third inning with a double and scored on Goodheart’s groundout to make it 2-0.
The Rebels tied it 2-2 in the fifth inning on an RBI single by Dillard and sacrifice fly by Kessinger against Kevin Kopps, who replaced starter Patrick Wicklander with two runners on base.
Ole Miss went ahead 3-2 in the sixth inning by scoring a run without getting the ball out of the infield.
Kopps struck out Cole Zabowski, but he reached first base on a wild pitch. Zabowski went to second when Ryan Olenek singled on a line drive off Kopps’ foot.
Both runners advanced on Cooper Johnson’s sacrifice bunt, and Zabowski scored on pinch-hitter Kevin Graham’s groundout.
Then the Razorbacks regained the lead, and Cronin made sure they kept it this time.
“Nothing short of spectacular, to be honest with you,” Kenley of Cronin’s performance. “I’ve come to kind of expect it from him.
“His fastball is electric, and you could kind of see it on the faces of those guys that he faced. Locating that one curveball, that was gross. As a hitter, having to come back from that is tough, and Matt is definitely making it hard on them.”