Razorbacks’ Wicklander has his way with Bulldogs
NO. 5 ARKANSAS 5, GONZAGA 0
FAYETTEVILLE — Matched up against Gonzaga preseason All-American Alek Jacob on Saturday, University of Arkansas left-hander Patrick Wicklander figured he would have to be near his best.
Wicklander delivered perhaps the best start of his career, as the sophomore combined with three relievers on a 2-hit shutout in a 5-0 victory over Gonzaga before a crowd of 7,427 at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The No. 5 Razorbacks (60) won the first three games against the Bulldogs (2-5) by a combined 21-8 and have a shot at a rare four-game sweep in today’s 1 p.m. finale.
Wicklander (2-0) took a no-hitter into the fifth inning before Josh Bristyan poked a single into center field. He allowed one hit and a walk while striking out 7 and throwing 89 pitches in his six-inning stint.
“The whole approach we had today was just to mix pitches, get ahead and stay ahead,” Wicklander said, crediting pitching coach Matt Hobbs and catcher Casey Opitz for helping formulate the pitching plan.
Wicklander was not nearly as dominant in his 10-1 victory over Eastern Illinois last Saturday.
Coach Dave Van Horn said Wicklander’s ability to get ahead in the count paid dividends against the Bulldogs.
“You know he’s getting bigger and stronger,” Van Horn said. “I mean he threw hard the first few innings. He was throwing the ball 92, 94 miles an hour, throwing his changeup a lot. Really didn’t have the breaking ball early, but then the breaking ball got better. He started getting outs with it.
“He had a really good outing. Better than last weekend’s by a lot in my opinion.”
Wicklander needed just seven pitches to get out of his final inning, the sixth. Only one runner got as far as second base against Wicklander, as catcher Stephen Lund drew a two-out walk in the second and advanced when Bristyan was hit by a pitch.
“He’s good,” Gonzaga Coach Mark Machtolf said. “He’s really good. Threw his changeup for a strike. Yeah, he’s really good. I was impressed with everything that he did.”
Jacob (0-1) struck out four of the first five batters he faced, mixing his delivery tempo and speeds, using a variety of off-speed offerings as his strikeout pitch.
Van Horn sensed Wicklander felt the challenge the funky right-hander provided.
“He’s matched up with their righty, Jacob, who is just really hard to hit,” Van Horn said. “He’s just hard to hit. You know he probably felt like it was one-on-one a little bit there. He was up to the challenge.”
Freshman Robert Moore provided the big bat for Arkansas to continue his weekend tear. Moore had a second-inning double to bring in Christian Franklin and open the scoring, singled and scored in the fifth and launched an opposite-field home run over the left-field wall in the sixth to go 3 for 3 with 2 runs and 3 RBI.
“I think he’s starting to relax at the plate a little bit,” Van Horn said.
Moore, who hit .083 in the season-opening sweep of Eastern Illinois, said he picked up something from watching video of his at-bats in that series.
“I didn’t realize I was breathing so heavily the first weekend,” Moore said. “I just tried to slow it down and just take deep breaths. Casey [Martin] has really helped me in trying to slow things down. That’s probably been the biggest difference.”
Moore is 6 for 10 against the Bulldogs with 3 runs scored and 7 driven in to raise his batting average to .318.
Jacob allowed 5 runs, 4 of them earned, on 6 hits and 2 walks while striking out 6 on 102 pitches in 52/3 innings.
“He’s usually really good, and he wasn’t bad today,” Machtolf said. “It’s kind of what’s happened in the first few games is just we’re giving extra outs and a team of this caliber, you give them an opening and they’re going to exploit it and they did that big time in all three games.”
Freshman Zack Gregory, leading off and playing left field in his first start, went 2 for 4 with a walk and a run scored for the Razorbacks. Franklin and Moore scored two runs each, and Heston Kjerstad, Martin, Franklin and Jacob Nesbit had the Hogs other hits.
Franklin sent a ringing double into the left-field corner with two outs in the second inning. Jacob wasn’t near as effective pitching out of the stretch with runners on. He walked Cole Austin on a 3-2 pitch after thinking he struck out the right-handed batter on his 2-2 delivery.
Moore sent a 1-0 pitch into center field to drive in Franklin.
“For the left-handers, we knew that if it started away it was probably going to be a ball, so just trying to get them up,” Moore said of the approach against Jacob. “He had a great changeup and honestly, everything moved pretty good.”
Moore scored on a throwing error in the fifth inning, then Kjerstad doubled in Gregory, who had reached on an infield single, to make it 3-0.
Franklin reached on an error with one out in the sixth inning, and with two outs Moore thought he had flied out to left field before the ball caught the wind and fell into the Arkansas bullpen to set the final score.
Moore looked unhappy after the home run swing and chopped down with his bat as he started running to first base.
“Well, we take BP every day and I know if you hit a ball in the air, unless you’re Kjerstad, it’s probably not going to get out to that part of the ballpark,” he said. “But I guess we had a different jet stream today and it just went out.”
Caden Monke, Kevin Kopps and Elijah Trest threw one scoreless inning each to preserve the shutout. Monke and Kopps allowed one walk each while Trest gave up the Bulldogs’ second hit in the ninth, a single by shortstop Ernie Yake.