Hogs hosts James Madison today for four-game series
FAYETTEVILLE -After not much success in football and basketball, Arkansas’ fans are hoping baseball brings some excitement and they will begin to get their answers on Friday when the Razorbacks host James Madison for a four-game series.
The Razorbacks and James Madison begin play at 3 p.m.. They will also play on Saturday (2 p.m.), Sunday (1 p.m.) and Monday (Noon). Dave Van Horn has his starting rotation set for the series.
“Yeah, we’ll go with Hagen Smith on Friday,” Van Horn said. “We’ll go with (Brady) Tygart on Saturday, (Mason) Molina on Sunday and Colin Fisher on Monday. In how many year, maybe never, I’ve been able to tell you a rotation, so hopefully they’ll stay healthy all year and we’ll be able to figure this one out.”
The only surprise was Tygart moving to Saturday and Molina on Sunday. Molina was the Texas Tech ace who transferred to Arkansas following the 2023 season. Van Horn explained the reasoning for the change.
“I don’t know, you could probably talk to Coach (Matt) Hobbs about it,” Van Horn said. “But I think left-rightleft. … It really doesn’t matter. And it could change, just maybe the two guys who have been in our program the longest. And you could go through a lot of things. Maybe how they pitched. But I think they’re pretty equal. They’re both really good. We’ll go that way but nah, no particular reason.”
Van Horn had considered sophomore
Ben Bybee to start on Monday, but instead opted for true freshman Fisher, a lefty from Noble (Okla.).
“We were thinking about Bybee and we’ve got some other guys as well,” Van Horn said. “Bybee you know tweaked his hamstring a little bit and his pitch count was down. He tried to pitch last weekend. We were inside. He didn’t have his best stuff and have the command that he’s had. But that’s kind of what we’re looking at. If you really look at it, Gabe Gaeckle has pitched really well lately. He threw great last weekend. He would be a candidate and there’s a couple of others.
“So it’s a good problem to have. Some of these guys are young but their stuff is really good. We’ll just play it out. It’s like I told the team yesterday in the dugout, we had a little meeting before practice started, we just talked about it’s just the beginning of the season. You know the game will tell us what to do. You guys will show us what to do. The cream will rise to the top and we’ll figure it out.”
With Peyton Stovall out with a broken foot for a few weeks, Van Horn did the expected and announced he would go with Peyton Holt at second base and Jared Sprague-lott at third.
“Holt will play there,” Van Horn said. “Played there the last third of the season and did a great job. He was going to be our starting third baseman, so Spraguelott, who was probably going to play a little bit everywhere, will start and he’s started in college for a few years. So I feel good about those guys defensively.”
Sprague-lott is a transfer from Richmond. Van Horn offered up a scouting report on James Madison with the info he has to this point.
“Yeah, and it’s still going on right now,” Van Horn said. “Basically what I can tell you is that… What we can do is we know what they did last year with who’s coming back. Maybe we’ve got velocities and tendencies and those type of things. This is a team that last year hit right at almost .300. Won a lot of games. They’re competitive and I don’t feel like they would have scheduled to come here a couple years ago if they didn’t feel good about what they had in their program at the time and also what’s coming in to start the season on the road a long way from home like this.”
One thing clear is James Madison likes to run on the bases and
Van Horn expects more of that this weekend.
“I think they stole about 90 bases last year or something,” Van Horn said. “But they also got thrown out 30-something times. So what that tells me is they’re going to keep doing it. That’s part of their game. Some of those are probably on swing-and-miss hit-andruns. So they’re not just trying to single, single, homer. They’re going to hit-and-run and try to advance a runner. Probably give up an out to move somebody into scoring position. We worked on it a lot. We talked about it. Especially early in the season when we’re playing teams from normally the east or the north. They’re inside a lot. They’ll try to run a first and third offense on you, try to steal a run from you.
“If we’re up five runs in the fifth, we’ll give it to them. Let’s get an out and let’s get in there and hit. If it’s late in the game, you’ve got to defend it a little better. You got to be on your toes. We know that is a major possibility. In the SEC, they don’t run as much because pitchers are quick to the plate and the catchers can really throw. You’ve got to really pick and choose your time and you really got to work at it.
Kentucky and Vandy do it a lot. They have those types of players. They play on turf. You know what you know with the league. But the non-conference guys, you just know that they’re going to probably do something to score besides hitting the ball all over the field. They’re going to try to manufacture runs.”
Each of the four games at Baum-walker Stadium this weekend can be streamed on the SEC Network+.