Razorbacks set to open series with Tigers
FAYETTEVILLE — With the weather starting to warm up, the University of Arkansas is ready to start racking up more games and finding its mid-SEC flow.
The No. 2 Razorbacks (14-3) face their first five-game week of the season starting with tonight’s 6:30 game against Memphis (9-8) at Baum-Walker Stadium as part of a two-game set.
Arkansas right-hander Caleb Bolden (0-0, 5.14 ERA) will make his third start and try to bounce from rough outings against Southeast Missouri State and Murray State. Memphis has announced 6-4 lefthander Dalton Kendrick (0-0, 14.29) will make his first start of the season against the Razorbacks.
“As far as Memphis coming to town, we’re looking forward to continuing to playing games,” said Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn, who will aim for career win No. 1,300 tonight. “We’re two, three, four games behind a lot of the other schools in the SEC right now in games played.
“We have some guys who need to play and some pitchers who need to throw. I’m going to try to mix it up the best I can but still try to win both games. So just looking forward to playing some more baseball games.”
Arkansas lost its first three games of the year in succession at Louisiana Tech (2-0) and at home against Oklahoma (8-5) and Alabama (16-1) in a six-day span, but rebounded to hold the Crimson Tide down in 9-1 and 3-1 wins on Saturday and Sunday.
“We kind of got complacent with where we were and we just weren’t
having fun,” said Arkansas catcher Casey Opitz, the SEC co-player of the week regarding the three-game skid. “I think that was the biggest thing. [Saturday] we kind of made it a point to have fun and be us.
“No matter what happens, we're going to have a good time. We're going to be a lot of energy, up-tempo group and that's what we did. I think everybody fed off that, bats and pitching wise.”
The Razorbacks remained No. 1 in two polls, but fell to No. 2 behind Vanderbilt in the USA Today coaches poll, which the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette references as its poll of record. The Hogs are tied with Vanderbilt (15-3) for fewest losses in the SEC.
Arkansas continues to have the top RPI in the country as calculated by D1Baseball.com.
The Tigers won three of four at home against Middle Tennessee State last weekend and are 5-1 since suffering a 7-game losing streak.
Memphis has already taken on two SEC teams in mid-week competition and its pitching staff has been battered in both. Ole Miss beat the Tigers 16-4 on March 2 in Oxford, Miss., and host Vanderbilt notched a 10-4 win on March 9.
Opitz, who provided a key, two-run single in Sunday's narrow victory, continues to lead Arkansas regulars in hitting, with a .364 average to go along with one home run and seven RBI. Brady Slavens (.317, 6 HR, 20 RBI) extended his team RBI lead against the Crimson Tide and opened the scoring on Sunday with a solo home run.
No other Razorback regulars are hitting higher than Christian Franklin (.281, 4, 12), but there is a solid grouping behind Franklin with Cullen Smith (.280, 1, 9), Jalen Battles (.267, 1, 14), Cayden Wallace (.262, 4, 7) and leadoff man Robert Moore (.261, 4, 11) who is in a slump.
Arkansas is 11th in the country with 1.53 home runs per game. The Razorbacks have the same 1.53 average of doubles per game but that figure ranks 153rd in the country.
Hunter Goodman (.344, 6 HR, 13 RBI) is the lone Tiger regular with a batting average over .286. However, Alec Treia (.286, 3, 12) and Taylor Howell (.276, 2, 11) both have double-digit RBI and have proven dangerous.
Arkansas has owned the series in recent history with 12 wins in the last 13 games against the Tigers. The lone exception was a 5-4 setback in North Little Rock on March 24, 2015.