UT Arlington uses long ball to eliminate Arkansas State
Arkansas State had to chase runs, as head coach Tommy Raffo described it, one more time in its final game of the 2021 baseball season.
Texas-Arlington scored six runs in the first inning to knock ASU starting pitcher Brandon Hudson out of their Sun Belt Conference tournament game Thursday at Riverwalk Stadium.
Palestine-Wheatley graduate and Wheatley native Will Nash helped the Red Wolves get back in the game with 6-1/3 scoreless innings in relief, but the Mavericks added two runs on an eighth-inning home run and defeated ASU 8-3.
UTA (26-29) clinched a berth in today’s semifinals with a victory that guaranteed the Mavericks would advance from Pool D.
ASU, which would have advanced to the semifinals with a victory, finishes the season with a 19-30 record.
“I thought that the game was played in the first inning. I think they did a great job of jumping on our starter, Hudson,” Raffo said. “We had an error and a misplay, we could have kept the game a little closer, but when they scored a six spot we had to make a move with Nash. I thought he was really good to keep us in the ballgame.”
Hudson (5-3) misplayed a ground ball hit by the Mavs’ first batter and then gave up Josh Minjarez’s two-run home run on a 1-2 pitch. The next two batters doubled as UTA’s lead grew to 3-0.
A sacrifice fly and a couple of RBI singles ended Hudson’s day. He allowed six runs (five earned) in two-thirds of an inning.
Nash got the final out of the first inning and kept the Mavs off the scoreboard for the rest of his stint. The sophomore from Wheatley, who scattered four hits, forced UTA to leave two runners on base in the fifth and worked out of a basesloaded jam in the seventh.
“Nash, we told him on the mound, ‘Let’s push this game into the fifth, sixth or seventh and see what happens,’ and he did that for us,” Raffo said. “He took it upon his shoulders and did it, and we forced the issue at 6-3 for them to make moves.”
Senior right fielder Tyler Duncan belted a long solo home run in the fourth inning for ASU’s first hit off UTA ace Carlos Tavera (3-4), a first-team All-Sun Belt pitcher who struck out nine batters in 6 1/3 innings.
The Red Wolves added two more runs in the seventh to pull within 6-3 and end Tavera’s day. Jaylon Deshazier drew a leadoff walk and, with one out, Blake McCutchen hit an infield single. Toler singled to drive in a run and UTA went to the bullpen.
ASU added another run when McCutchen scored from second base on Michael Wong’s wild pitch. Wong retired Drew Tipton on a ground ball and worked around Ben Klutts’ eighth-inning single, striking out the last two batters of the inning.
Connor Aube gave UTA breathing room in the eighth with his two-run home run off ASU reliever Kollin Stone. Mavs reliever Tanner King yielded Sky-Lar Culver’s leadoff single in the ninth before retiring the next three batters.
ASU tallied six hits. Duncan belted his 11th home run of the season and finished the season with 54 RBI.
The Red Wolves’ regular lineup included three seniors in Tipton, Duncan and Culver. Catcher Liam Hicks, a junior, is considered an MLB draft prospect.
ASU signed eight players in November, all Arkansas high school products.
“Coach (Rick) Guarno has really done a great job recruiting-wise for us and we’ve got some really bright young kids, a lot from the Northeast Arkansas area and the state of Arkansas, and they can’t wait to be Red Wolves,” Raffo said. “We return our starting pitching, who kind of held us this year, especially from the Little Rock series on, with Hudson, Nash and (Carter) Holt. There’s some things we need to fill up and have some guys come in and compete and win a job, but we feel fortunate with some of the young men coming in, too.”
ASU lost its first seven games and was 4-14 after dropping the first two games of its weekend series at Illinois State. The Red Wolves won their next four, including a series sweep of UALR in Sun Belt play.
A road sweep of Austin Peay and a home series victory over Georgia Southern were part of an April-May stretch where ASU won six of seven games. The Red Wolves played 32 of their 49 games away from home, 30 on the road and two at the Sun Belt tournament, a neutral site.
“I think we were a tale of two seasons a little bit. We were kind of a mess early on until we settled in,” Raffo said. “I thought the last game of Illinois State and Little Rock was kind of a turning point when we settled on a rotation and settled in the offense a little bit
“We were chasing too many runs this year and what I mean by that is the offense had to play from behind, kind of a microcosm of today’s loss too, and that’s difficult. We felt like we had a good enough offense to make a run and we knew we had to outhit or outscore opponents at various times in the season.”