Hogs fall at Vandy
If Trey Killian could have been perfect for a little bit longer the weekend may have ended differently for Arkansas. The junior pitched seven perfect innings Sunday against Vanderbilt before being pulled, and the Commodores took advantage of the Razorbacks’ bullpen to score a 1-0 victory and a series sweep at Hawkins Field in Nashville, Tenn.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — If Trey Killian could have been perfect for a little bit longer the weekend may have ended differently for Arkansas.
The junior pitched seven perfect innings Sunday against Vanderbilt before being pulled, and the Commodores took advantage of the Razorbacks’ bullpen to score a 1-0 victory and a series sweep at Hawkins Field in the opening weekend of SEC play.
Vanderbilt (16-4, 3-0 SEC) loaded the bases in the ninth inning on a Jason Delay double and two intentional walks before Dansby Swanson sent a grounder past pitcher Lance Phillips to score Delay for the game winner.
Killian, who had seen just 32/3 innings of work this season due to elbow tendonitis in his throwing arm, faced 21 batters and struck out six over his 83 pitches.
“It is tough. Obviously, I want to go back out there but it’s still early in the season for me. Only being my second outing, I’m on a pretty limited pitch count still. I understood,” Killian said. “I almost came out in the sixth inning but I told [pitching] coach [Dave] Jorn I wanted one more and if got into any trouble we could go with someone else. I managed to get out there in the seventh and get the job done one more time.”
Arkansas (9-8, 0-3 SEC) has lost six consecutive. It is the longest such streak in Coach Dave Van Horn’s 13 years at the helm, and the longest for the program since losing seven in a row in April 2000.
“There’s nobody that wants to win more than this coaching staff but we don’t want to hurt anybody to get a win. We’ve got to take care of him,” Van Horn said of the decision to pull Killian. “He’s done everything we’ve ever asked him to and our responsibility is to make sure that we take care of him number one and then worry about winning games after that.”
The Razorback bats had to deal with a tough starter on the mound as well. Jordan Sheffield went 7 innings, striking out 4, allowing 2 hits, and walking 3 on 103 pitches for the Commodores.
But it was the eighth inning where the game nearly broke open for both teams.
Clark Eagen reached on an error, Andrew Benintendi walked, and Tyler Spoon got on base with a dribbler down the first-base line loaded the bases. Vanderbilt ended the threat thanks to right fielder Rhett Wiseman running in on a Rick Nomura fly out and throwing Eagen out at home for the double play.
Vanderbilt rode the momentum of Wiseman’s play by getting its first hit of the game in the bottom of the eighth when Bryan Reynolds beat pitcher Josh Alberius (12) to the bag on a grounder to first. Reynolds stole second and third but was left stranded when Alberius struck out the next two batters.
Philip Pfeifer (2-1) worked the final two innings for Vanderbilt, allowing one hit, one walk and striking out three for the victory.