With quirky slate, Hogs shift pitchers
FAYETTEVILLE — A little more than a year later than originally planned, right-handed pitcher Caleb Bolden will make his first SEC start for the Arkansas Razorbacks.
University of Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs said Bolden was going to start game three of last season’s SEC-opening series at Mississippi State.
But as the Razorbacks were preparing to travel to Starkville, Miss., the series was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Within a few days, the season had been canceled.
Now Bolden — a junior from Texarkana, Texas, who redshirted in 2019 because of elbow surgery — will get his first SEC start when No. 1 Arkansas (30-6, 11-4 SEC) opens a three-game series against No. 11 South Carolina (24-10, 10-5) at 6 tonight at Founders Park in Columbia, S.C. The game will be televised on the SEC Network.
Bolden’s previous 11 starts were in nonconference games, including five this season.
In SEC play, Bolden has pitched two innings in relief and allowed two runs — one each at Mississippi State on March 27 and against Texas A&M on Sunday.
Bolden (2-0, 4.63 ERA) is starting tonight in place of Patrick Wicklander, who pitched 4 2/3 innings against Texas A&M when the Razorbacks swept a doubleheader from the Aggies on Saturday after the opener was postponed by a day because of rain.
Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said it’s too soon for Wicklander to pitch tonight, so Bolden is the choice.
“He’s our freshest guy, really,” Van Horn said. “Caleb’s started some games for us over the last few weeks, and he threw pretty good the other day.”
In Bolden’s previous start, he went 5 innings and allowed 7 hits, 1 run and 1 walk with 9 strikeouts in the Razorbacks’ 12-4 victory over the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff on April 13.
Bolden’s most impressive performance was going the final four innings when Arkansas beat Texas 4-0 on Feb. 21 in the College Baseball Showdown at Arlington, Texas. He didn’t allow a hit and had one walk with seven strikeouts.
“If he can get us off to a good start, that would be big,” Van Horn said. “But we have a lot of guys that are ready to go. If we have a chance to win the game, we’ll do whatever we need to do to win with our pitching staff.”
Van Horn said Peyton Pallette (1-2, 4.06 ERA), who went six innings in the Razorbacks’ 2-1, 10-inning victory over Texas A&M in Saturday’s nightcap, will start game two. The game three starter is still to be decided.
There’s a chance the Razorbacks and Gamecocks could play a Friday doubleheader with rain forecast for Saturday.
“Dave Van Horn and I have already discussed it,” South Carolina Coach Mark Kingston said. “We’ve talked about some of the different options.
“You never force-feed the opponent — ‘Hey, here’s what we’re going to do.’ I think you give the opponent the respect to say, ‘Let’s try to make the best decision we can for everybody involved. Teams, fans.’ We’ll continue to monitor the weather, and Dave and I will be in constant contact.”
Kingston said the Gamecocks, who ended their three-game series at LSU last weekend by sweeping a Saturday doubleheader, will keep their same starting rotation of right-handers Thomas Farr (2-3, 3.28 ERA) tonight, and Brannon Jordan (4-2, 3.15 ERA) and Will Sanders (6-1, 2.11 ERA) in games two and three.
“They’re guys that have really good stuff,” Kingston said. “They’re competitors. They’re winners, and they like having the ball. We know we’ve got a great opponent coming in this weekend, and I think they’re anxious to test themselves against what is one of the best offenses in the country.”
Van Horn said he’s not sure who will start game three, but that it won’t be Lael Lockhart (1-1, 4.38 ERA).
Lockhart, a transfer from Houston whose 10 appearances this season have all been starts, went 2 1/3 innings at Ole Miss and 3 innings against Texas A&M in his two previous games. “He’ll definitely be out of the bullpen,” Van Horn said. “He knows that, and he’s good with it.”
Van Horn said it’s possible Wicklander could start game three or pitch in relief.
“We’re just trying to figure out how to use him right now,” Van Horn said. The Razorbacks have 15 pitchers on their 30-man travel roster, including Zebulon Vermillion and Connor Noland.
Vermillion (2-0, 3.55 ERA) hasn’t pitched since going 1 2/3 innings at Ole Miss on April 13.
“He had some soreness, so we didn’t mess with it,” Van Horn said. “He seems to be 100% now. He’ll either start or be out of the bullpen.”
Noland (1-0, 5.40 ERA), a former SEC starter, hasn’t pitched since March 5 against Murray State because of a forearm strain. He’s thrown five innings all season.
“Connor hasn’t pitched in a couple months, so we’re just going to try to pick the right situation for him,” Van Horn said. “We’re not planning on starting him. But we would definitely bring him out of the pen.”
If Arkansas and South Carolina have a doubleheader Friday, the Razorbacks will play six SEC games in seven days. It will be six games in nine days for the Gamecocks.
“You want to make sure you keep guys on feasible pitch counts still,” Kingston said. “We’ll do that, and I’m sure Arkansas will do that. I think it will test the depth of the pitching staffs if we do have to play that many innings in a short amount of time.
“None of us are going to put our pitchers in harm’s way, and maybe you’ll see some guys that haven’t pitched as much up to this point get some opportunities.”
South Carolina pitchers threw 23 innings at LSU because both games of the doubleheader were seven innings. Arkansas pitchers threw 28 innings against Texas A&M.
Both games of an Arkansas-South Carolina doubleheader on Friday would be for nine innings — as they were for the Arkansas-Texas A&M doubleheader — because it wasn’t the final scheduled day of the series. South Carolina’s doubleheader at LSU featured two seven-inning games because it was the final day of the series.
The scheduling differences last weekend mean the South Carolina pitchers will have more recovery time after working fewer innings, and South Carolina doesn’t have to change its starting rotation. But Van Horn said he doesn’t approach this series as if Arkansas is at a disadvantage.
“I don’t look at it like that,” Van Horn said. “I look at it like it’s baseball. Things happen. You have weather and you just have to go handle it.”