Ask Mike: Hogs Shade Horns, Softball No. 1 and Big Country’s Big Bat

Q. Our first question is from Hill Country Razorback who asks: Did you think the Baseball Hogs had a chance of winning even a game against Texas? Was winning the series a surprise? The sweep a shock? Be Honest.

A. I’m always honest. Yes, I thought Arkansas would win a game, a game where the pitching was good and where they scored a lot of runs. That’s been a pattern the past three weeks. I figured it would be game two. Yes winning he series was a surprise.

In game two when Arkansas went up 4-0 in the 2nd but didn’t score in the 3rd and 4th and Texas cut it to 4-1, I thought, okay this is another one of those games where they score early and get shut out after that while the other guys slowly catch up and take the lead to win it. But the Hogs added single runs in the 5th and 6th while Gabe Gaeckle and Aiden Jimenez blanked them the rest of the way. That was a huge win.

A sweep? I was thinking, no way. After Van Horn indicated earlier in the week that he was going to make a change in the game three starter only to put Landon Beidelschies on the mound again I was all but certain Texas would go home with one win. He did struggle giving up 4 runs in 4 innings. Texas led 4-2 in the 4th but the Hogs scored 4 in the bottom of the 4th going up 6-4. A fly ball that dropped in shallow center field allowed Texas to score 3 in the top of the 5th to go back up 7-6 and I was thinking, it’s gonna take a dozen runs to win this game. Actually Arkansas scored 13 but needed only 9. Five home runs by the Hogs in that game contributed greatly to the margin of victory.

This was a totally different team from the one we saw the previous three weekends.

Q. RazorAlex88 says: The Diamond Hogs have life left in them! Beautiful weekend with a sweep vs the shorthorns. Gotta keep that fire burning going into last two series. Despite the bad April… Diamond Hogs first team to reach 40 wins!

A. That’s the way this game works. Just when you think everything is going bad it goes back the other direction. Arkansas goes from five games behind Texas to two games and two games ahead of LSU and Georgia. Hopefully this will continue.

Q. PigDaddyKane has more questions: For the naysayers in the fan base, since we swept the shorthorns does this mean the baseball team is good again. Y’all still wanting DVH gone?

A. The anti Van Horn faction will be quiet until the next time this team struggles. It’s the SEC and that could happen. They swept Texas but now have to go to the one place in the SEC that has a fan atmosphere comparable to Baum-Walker. Alex Box in Baton Rouge. Then it’s back home to face Tennessee.

Texas still has a two game lead. They have a series with Florida at home and finish up with Oklahoma in Norman. Win one of those remaining series and Arkansas probably has a national seed locked up.

Q. Hawgredneck says: I give Zach Root credit for the sweep. Arkansas needed to send a message right off the bat and he did it. We ain’t playin.’ I still can’t believe that he shut Texas out for 8 innings.

A. His explanation was classic. He said before the game that Matt Hobbs told him the fans didn’t pay good money to watch him pitch just four innings which has been his history. So, he said, I decided to double that. He two-hit Texas, recording 11 strike outs. I agree that Root was the key to the entire weekend. As we’ve seen most of the season when the pitching is really good the bats heat up. Texas ran into a buzz saw and it stayed that way the entire weekend. Hopefully we’ll see Root go longer from here on out.

Arnold Ziffel asks: What kind of impact do you think Gage Wood will have for the remainder of the season?

Hopefully we’ll see his pitch count go up against LSU. I’d love to see if he can go six innings instead of four. That would help the day-three pitching possibly giving Van Horn and option to replace Landon Beidelschies as the game three starter. Parker Coil is coming back for the LSU series. His ERA is .6. Hunter Deitz may be about to come back. It also looks good for Dylan Carter and Christian Foutch are looking better. Carson Wiggins may not be done. This pitching staff is looking really good as we approach the end of the season.

Q. mousetown says: It was a weekend full of surprises but to me the biggest was the way Davalan broke out of a mini slump by tattooing the ‘Horns hot shot reliever. His sub 1 ERA went out the window with one swing of the bat.

A. The freshman pitcher Davalan hit that three-run homer off is is Dylan Volantis. Before that game his ERA was .9. After he was relieved it jumped to 1.63.
I told Grant Hall that Arkansas needed to have a lead when Volantis came into the game because they weren’t going to score after that. He’s that good.

Once again I was wrong. Arkansas actually scored six runs after he came in. Four runs given up by him and two more by Jason Flores, another good Texas reliever. Arkansas was amazing at the plate.

Q. HL McCamish says: At 6-3 Reese Robinett is a natural first baseman. Turns out he can hit too. Six RBI and 2 home runs in game three against Texas. Take those away and Texas wins. 49 games into the season and he’s batted 22 times. What’s up with that?

A. Dave Van Horn says he’s always been a very good infielder and we saw him make a couple of impressive catches in that game. However he apparently hadn’t done enough at the plate to put in him the starting line up. He got inserted into a midweek game a couple of weeks ago. Played 3rd base. Got a hit and a walkoff RBI. Robinette got his chance against Texas and made the most of it.

Q. EddyLynn says: When we fell behind early in game three I figured a sweep was out the window. But then we just starting hitting home runs and we didn’t stop. What happened? Texas has the best pitching in college baseball.

A. Texas helped. I think they got rattled. Texas pitchers walked 22 Razorbacks and plunked another 9. That’s 31 base runners in three games on without a hit. Throw in 8 home runs and 25 hits you’re going to score a lot of runs. I also think that good players when they are challenged they respond. Texas at home was the perfect formula to snap these hitters out of a funk.

Q. Hogdogger says: Those comeback Hogs! Not impressed with the game announcers but a whale of a series win. Can we keep it going?

A. This was sent after the Friday game so the “keep it going question” is probably in reference to getting a sweep. Yes, they kept it going. The announcers on Thursday were ESPN’s. Friday it was an SEC Network game. Those guys are going to speak to both fan bases meaning that even though Texas was getting dominated they were still going to point out what a great season Texas was having and how they would almost certainly bounce back. I thought they were also properly complimentary of Arkansas.

The Saturday was an ESPN3 game announced by Brett Dolan and former Razorback Troy Eklund. Some of those ESPN3 crews are biased toward the home team. Those guys don’t do that. They play to the viewers of both teams which is the way it should be.

braxtonproper wants to know: With a few weeks left in baseball will the Hogs host a regional/superregional if they lose a couple of more series?

A. By sweeping Texas I don’t think there’s any way Arkansas doesn’t get a regional. If they lose two of three to LSU and Tennessee that would likely make them a 9 seed or below unless they were to make it to the championship game of the SEC Tournament. Personally I think they will win the Tennessee series at home. I think that gets them a national seed no matter what happens this weekend at Baton Rouge.

Q. PopularPorkster says: What a brilliant idea to bring the ’85 team in for this series with a rare appearance by Jeff King, the only Razorback in any sport to be drafted number one. Norm and his guys brought us good luck.

A. It was a super idea. That ’85 team was maybe Norm’s best. Those guys met with the current team and pumped them up. Plus Grant Hall sat with them in those high dollar seats above the Arkansas bullpen. I asked him if they had any funny stories. This is a quote from him: “The night they went to ORU and had a brawl that sent 9 ORU players to the hospital but none of Arkansas’ players. We stopped playing ORU as much after that. Gary Murphy did a spot on impersonation of Norm talking about how it wasn’t Arkansas fault. Doug Clark said a former Miami assistant coach told him that the 1985 Arkansas team was the best college team he’s ever seen. Fourteen players off that team were drafted.”

Q. sgiles says: I loved what the baseball Hogs did to Texas but don’t forget about the softball ladies. They finished the regular season with six straight series wins beating yet another ranked team. Go home LSWho!

A. And they have moved to #1 in this week’s Softball America poll. However, the SEC is loaded at the top in softball and Arkansas goes to the SEC Tournament as the 5 seed. They get a bye on Tuesday and will play the winner of the Georgia-Kentucky game on Wednesday. Arkansas swept Kentucky at home at the end of March. They did not played Georgia in the regular season however Georgia is only 7-15 in the SEC and lost every conference series they played.

Q. @benwiley2497 says: The women’s basketball roster shows only 3 players. Will there be ANY returning players?

A. Go back and look. The roster has been updated. There are 13 players listed. There are five foreign players, one from Arkansas, two from Oklahoma and girls from Kansas, Georgia, Kansas, Arizona and Tennessee

Q. WVHogfan asks: Have you ever seen anything like the 6th inning of the first LSU Arkansas softball game? Umps taking 10 minutes to review a non-reviewable play?

A. It was weird. If the play is not reviewable why does it take that long to decide it? The ump didn’t know? The rules people at the review center didn’t know?

Basically an LSU batter bunted but threw her bat in front of the plate where it contacted the ball a second time and pushed it away from Arkansas’ catcher resulting in a base hit. It was supposed to be a foul ball. How could the various umps not see that?

Q. KyHog wants to know: How much longer until we know about Karter Knox? If he comes back will Cal add anybody else or would that be it? Tell me something. I need to know.

A. We won’t know anything about Knox until the deadline for withdrawing from the NBA draft. That’s May 28. It will likely be after that if Cal announces any additional portal transfers. Sources say he is still looking at the possibility of adding another high scoring shooter and another big man.

Q. CajunHog says: Darius Acuff tore up the Iverson Classic Saturday night. Named the MVP after scoring 32 with 11 assists but the BigBoneHeadNation is at it again, butting into Internet conversations between Razorback fans and taking shots at Acuff. Livin’ in their heads.

A. Those guys don’t give up. One of them was claiming that some of the better players skipped the Iverson Classic so it wasn’t that big of a deal that Acuff did what he did. Another pointed out that Acuff shot 23 times. He said that’s probably why Fland, Adou & Thiero entered the NBA draft and Big Z hit the portal. No shots would be available for them. He also said that DJ Wagner, Billy Richmond, Karter Knox and Trevon Brazile will probably be limited to no more than 5 shots a game next season because Acuff such is such a ball hog. It’s gotta be killing them that Cal went back to Lexington and took down Kentucky in front of them. Too bad. Talk is cheap but keep talking.