Hogs take series despite 3-0 loss to Rhode Island
FAYETTEVILLE — Starting Sunday’s baseball game in 39-degree cold apparently made the Rhode Island Rams feel right at home.
For after losing 5-2 and 3-2 to the Arkansas Razorbacks in Friday’s day-night doubleheader starting in the 50s dropping into the high 40s, the Rams skunked Arkansas, 3-0, on three hits on a colder Sunday before 1,342 at Baum Stadium.
Unable to get the sweep but winning the series two games to one, the Razorbacks are 12-4 going into 3 p.m. games Tuesday and Wednesday at Baum against Alcorn State at Baum before opening SEC play Friday through Sunday hosting Mississippi State at Baum.
Tuesday’s Alcorn State game was originally scheduled for 6:30 p.m. but was moved back because of Tuesday night’s temperature forecast in the 20s.
The Rams of the Atlantic 10 leave Fayetteville 6-8.
Rhode Island right-hander Matt Murphy shut out Arkansas on three hits through seven complete innings Sunday.
“He was the story of the game really,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “He commanded that fast ball away really well against the left-handed hitters. And we just hit a lot of fly balls.”
Hunter Wilson, the junior third baseman from Spiro, Okla., at Arkansas via previous stops at Stephen F. Austin and Eastern Oklahoma State Junior College, singled his first two at bats on his two for Sunday after going four for four Friday in the doubleheader. The two teams were originally scheduled to play one on Friday and Saturday, but the games were rearranged in deference to Saturday’s snow, which fell as forecast.
“Wilson got six hits in a row,” Van Horn said Sunday. “We only had three hits today, and he hit two of them, and he’s hitting in the nine-hole. That tells you what kind of day we had offensively.”
Wilson and Jake Arledge singled consecutively with one out in the third but but were stranded as No. 2 and 3 hitters Chad Spanberger and Luke Bonfield, delivering Friday night’s ninth-inning game-winning RBI single, both flied out. Wilson’s single and Arledge hit by pitch again gave Arkansas first and second against Murphy with one out in sixth, but Spanberger flied out and Bonfield grounded out.
After consecutive one-out walks by relievers Blaise Whitman and Tyler Barss, it appeared No. 4 and No. 5 Grant Koch and Dominic Fletcher also seemed swinging for the fences but netted nothing but a pop fly to short and a foul pop to the catcher.
“We’ve got guys trying to do too much,” Van Horn said. “Instead of getting a base-hit and getting the next guy up, they were trying to hit three-run homers and pulling off and hitting balls off the end of the bat. Everybody loves home runs, but I don’t want to live and die by home runs. We’ve got to make adjustments. If they don’t give you pitches that you can hit out of the park in certain counts, you just take what they give you. Get your single and get the next guy to the plate.”
Arkansas got a scare Sunday when second baseman Carson Shaddy, the MVP of the previous weekend’s Frisco Classic and coming back from two errors in Friday’s second game with with two defensive gems and turning a doubleplay Sunday, was down in pain and removed from the game in Sunday’s fourth inning hustling around the bag at second on Evan Lee’s inning-ending grounder.
It appears to be a sprain but no fracture pending x-rays, Van Horn said. For now, Van Horn hopes Shaddy will be ready for Mississippi State.
The Rams got all they needed Sunday from the game’s first three at bats. Leadoff man Chris Hess, four for four, singled. Martin Figueroa doubled. Jordan Powell singled them both home.
Justin Jewell, 0 for his previous 12, homered leading off the second.
After Alberius through five, Kevin Kopps from the sixth through the eighth and Cannon Chadwick in the ninth shut out the Rams allowing just four more of Rhode Island’s eight hits.
“Josh didn’t get off to a good start,” Van Horn said. “But he settled in after giving up that leadoff home run in the second. Kopps’ stuff was filthy. His stuff was good.”
Arkansas’ pitching was good to great most of the weekend.
With 4 2/3 innings scoreless relief, Barrett Loseke won Friday’s first game, 5-2 inheriting a 2-1 deficit from starter Blaine Knight of Bryant.
Arkansas mustered only five hits in Friday’s first game but got solo home runs by Bonfield and Fletcher and a RBI single by Arledge but went ahead scoring on a wild pitch.
Friday night Arkansas right-hander Trevor Stephan consecutively retired the first 19 batters and through 8 1/3 through a two-hitter with a career high 13 strikeouts.
A Shaddy error and Hess’ single broke the perfect game and then the no-hitter in seventh.
In Friday night’s ninth, Shaddy and shortstop Jax Biggers committed one-out errors loading the bases after Powell’s single.
Van Horn summoned Chadwick who struck out his first batter but got tagged for Mike Corin’s game-tying two-run single then struck out Jewell to end the inning. So Chadwick was the winning pitcher of record when Bonfield’s RBI single won it in Arkansas’ ninth.
“Trevor pitched an unbelievable game,” Chadwick said Sunday. “To kind of take that away from him, that didn’t sit well with me. It was rough. But you know he believes in me, and I believe in him. Things like that are going to happen. I know he’ll get another one where maybe he’ll go the whole nine.”
Stephan took well the no-decision for his best game.
“That’s all right,” Stephan said Friday night. “We got the W.”
Sunday
Rhode Island….210 000 000 - 3 8 0
Arkansas………000 000 00 - 0 3 0
Murphy, Whitman (8), Barss (8) and Hill; Alberius, Kopps
(6), Chadwick (9) and Koch.
W-Murphy (1-1). L-Alberius (0-3).
HR-Rhode Isand: Jewell (1).
Friday
Game 1
Rhode Island….000 200 000 - 2 9 2
Arkansas………010 102 10x - 5 5 1
Wilson, Whitman (4), Jangols (6), Robinson (7), Romano
(8) and Cavaliere; Knight and Koch.
W-Loseke (2-0). L-Whitman (1-1). HR-Arkansas: Fletcher (4). Bonfield (2).
Game 2
Rhode Island…000 000 002 - 2 3 2
Arkansas……..001 010 001 - 3 8 3
Johnson, G. Cavaliere (6), Barss (9) and Figueroa; Stephan, Chadwick (9) and Gosser.
W-Chadwick (1-0). L-Barss (0-1).
HR-Arkansas: Arledge (3).