Hogs tackle next spring step

Pads are on and contact is allowed in scrimmage today.

FAYETTEVILLE — Blaine Knight saved his best outing for his biggest appearance yet, and the No. 15 Arkansas Razorbacks hit three home runs to batter No. 13 LSU 9-3 on Friday night.

The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (25-6, 8-2 SEC) snapped a six-game losing streak against the No. 13 Tigers (20-11, 5-5) and remained in a tie with Auburn atop the SEC West, after the Tigers beat Texas A&M 2-1.

Knight (5-1) won his fourth consecutive start, all against SEC opponents, and helped the Razorbacks improve to 7-1 in Friday games before an estimated crowd of 9,288 at Baum Stadium.

Knight, a 6-3 right-hander from Bryant, entered the game with 48 strikeouts and two walks, but he did not improve on the nation’s best strikeout-to-walk ratio. The sophomore allowed three walks — one each in the first, fifth and sixth innings — and three hits. He struck out 6 and left after throwing 97 pitches through 6 innings to lower his ERA to 1.94.

“When the competition gets better, I get better,” Knight said. “I’m not scared to go against any of these guys. It’s the bulldog mentality.”

Knight threw the first scoreless outing of five-plus innings of his career.

“I don’t think he had his best command tonight, though his stuff was good,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. “He battled through it. He was a little bit frustrated with himself tonight.”

Eric Cole, Jared Gates and Chad Spanberger all hit home runs, each one longer than the next, punctuated by Spanberger’s three-run home run over the center-field wall to the right of the 400-foot

sign. The Razorbacks pushed their SEC-leading home run total to 43.

LSU, which had been shut out in consecutive Friday night games, broke through in the seventh against reliever Dominic Taccolini on pinch-hitter Jordan Romero’s RBI single.

The bottom of the lineup produced most of the damage for Arkansas, with the sixthrough-nine hitters going 8 for 18, with 6 runs scored and 6 RBI.

Carson Shaddy, Gates and Cole had two hits apiece, including home runs from Gates and Cole out of the seven and eight spots.

“They just outplayed us tonight,” LSU Coach Paul Mainieri said. “They deserved to win.”

Arkansas broke on top in the second inning when Cole hit an Alex Lange offering over the left-field wall for an opposite-field home run, his third of the year and Lange’s fifth allowed.

The Hogs squandered a string of scoring opportunities in the early innings, stranding the bases loaded in each of the first three innings against the hard-throwing Lange.

With one out in the first, Spanberger reached on a wild pitch after striking out. Luke Bonfield followed with a four-pitch walk, then Greg Koch slapped a first-pitch single to left field. Lange struck out Dominic Fletcher on a 3-2 breaking ball in the dirt, then fanned Shaddy on three pitches to squelch the scoring chance.

“He was going to his breaking ball a lot with the bases loaded, but we just kept with our same approach and we eventually got to him,” Gates said.

Lange had three more strikeouts with runners on third base in the second and third innings, as Arkansas went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position through four innings.

“I thought our hitters did a really nice job against Alex Lange, just battling and making him throw a lot of pitches,” Van Horn said. “He showed how good he is by working out of jams three innings in a row.

“You felt like you had a chance to bust the game open with a flare or any kind of hit and Lange just wouldn’t let us have it.”

The Razorbacks finally had a breakthrough while chasing Lange in the fifth inning.

The rally started on Shaddy’s grounder to third base on which LSU’s Josh Smith threw wildly to first for a two-base error. With one out, Cole poked a low pitch into the gap in left-center field to bring home Shaddy, ending Lange’s night at 104 pitches. Nine-hole batter Jax Biggers laced a double off left-handed reliever Nick Bush down the right-field line for another RBI double and a 3-0 lead.

Arkansas scored three runs in the sixth, all after two outs. Fletcher drew a walk against Russell Reynolds, advanced on a wild pitch, then scored on Shaddy’s bouncer up the middle. Gates followed with a first-pitch home run off the wall of the LSU bullpen for a 5-0 lead.

Spanberger’s home run came off left-handed reliever

NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. WAMPLER Eric Cole (8) is greeted by teammates Jax Biggers (left) and Jake Arledge (middle) after hitting an opposite-field home run in the bottom of the second inning Friday night at Baum Stadium. Cole’s third home run of the season gave Arkansas a 1-0 lead, and the 15th-ranked Razorbacks hit two more home runs en route to a 9-3 victory over No. 13 LSU. An estimated crowd of 9,288 saw Blaine Knight throw six scoreless innings to improve his record to 5-1.

NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. WAMPLER Arkansas freshman pitcher Blaine Knight threw 97 pitches over six scoreless innings during Friday night’s 9-3 victory over LSU at Baum Stadium. Knight (5-1) lowered his ERA to 1.94 and has 54 strikeouts and 5 walks on the season.

NWA Democrat-Gazette/J.T. WAMPLER Arkansas Razorbacks shortstop Jax Biggers follows through with his tag after getting Cole Freeman of LSU out on a stolen base attempt at second Friday at Baum Stadium in Fayetteville. The No. 15 Razorbacks scored eight combined runs in the fifth through seventh innings to beat the No. 13 Tigers 9-3. The Razorbacks improved to 8-2 in the SEC and the Tigers fell to 5-5 in conference play.