Arkansas looking forward to trio of exhibition baseball tests with visiting OSU this weekend

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – It may not count in the standings, but two of college baseball’s most storied programs and somewhat friendly rivals will delight their fans with a pair of scrimmages at Baum Walker Stadium this weekend.

Arkansas and Oklahoma State University will meet Friday night at 6 p.m. for a nine-inning contest and then play a pair of five-inning games Saturday at noon.

Admission is free and concessions will be sold during the contests, which are the first fall exhibitions for Arkansas since the Razorbacks outscored the Texas Rangers Instructional League team 18-6 in a pair of games October, 2022.

“The thing about exhibition games is our hitters get to see different arms,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “When you get toward the end of fall ball, they might’ve seen the same pitcher four times, once a week or whatever. It might not be on the same team or you face them every weekend, but you’re seeing it.

“And when you’re facing outside competition it’s just different. A different feel. Sometimes you find out some things about guys both ways. Hey, this guy’s a gamer. Lights come on and here they go. A little different motor. And you find out that some guys are a little bit nervous right now and this might help them get over it a little bit heading into the spring.”

The idea for the games was an off shoot of an event that originally had Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Nebraska and Omaha playing at Charles Schwab Field, the site of the College World Series in Omaha.

“Both of our football teams have a bye weekend,” Van Horn said. “When it got canceled up there in Omaha right before school started, (we) just talked with them. We almost got Nebraska to come down as well, but that kind of fell through.

“Those were the teams that were going to play up there, but Oklahoma State was close. They wanted to play. Kind of started out, we were going to play them Friday, thought about why not play again on Saturday and they were all for it.

“For them to take a road trip and kind of get the feel for playing on the road, I’m sure we’ll have a pretty good amount of fans out there, it’ll be a good experience for both teams that way.”

Arkansas finished 44-16 and Oklahoma State 42-19 last season.

The Razorbacks beat the Cowboys 18-1 at Arlington’s Globe Life Stadium in 2022 before the Cowboys took a 2-1 decision in a 14-inning game last season at the Rangers’ home park.

Arkansas beat OSU two out of three games while winning the NCAA Tournament Stillwater Regional in 2021 en route to a berth in the CWS.

Van Horn and Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday, brother of former St. Louis Cardinals star Matt Holliday and uncle of Baltimore Orioles second baseman Jackson Holliday, finalized this weekend’s format on Wednesday.

“…We’ll play nine and then the way we’re going to work it on Saturday, is we’re going to probably play 10 innings, but we’re going to play two 5-inning games,” Van Horn said. “We talked about this yesterday, and we had talked about it originally when we were making plans to do this, to play a little bit more than nine innings. So we decided to go 10.

“So, at the end of five innings on the first game on Saturday, we’ll take a 10 or 15-minute break, let them fix the field again and then we’ll start as up as soon as we can and play five more and finish it up.”

Van Horn is planning on starting sophomore Gabe Gaeckle on Friday night and using numerous pitchers in the three contests.

“We’ll start Gaeckle Friday,” Van Horn said. “And then we’re planning on pitching…like, six or seven guys. Could be more, if they make us pitch more because it doesn’t go great. We’ll do what we need to do.

“…If somebody wants to run a player for one of their starting defenders so to speak because there’s little issues … because I was talking to Coach Holliday yesterday and I think they’ve got a guy or two that’s getting close to maybe hurting a hamstring or something, I’m all good with it.

“We don’t have that issue yet… But we can run somebody. So a little loose with the rules.”

This weekend will mark the end of the team’s fall scrimmages.

“Looking forward to having an opportunity to play some innings against outside competition this weekend and kind of finish things up, wrap things up as far as team practices,” Van Horn said. “And then we’ll get into basically the segment where we’re working on a lot of position things — infielders with infielders and that type of stuff. Yeah, ready to go.”

Gaeckle, a freshman All-American closer last season, joins fellow returnee Gage Wood among returning hurlers vying for weekend starting spots among what appears to be a deep staff.

The Razorbacks also used the transfer portal to nab East Carolina’s Zach Root, Ohio State’s Landon Beidelschies and Oregon State’s Aiden Jimenez, who is rehabbing an injury and has not pitched this fall.

Ben Bybee, Parker Coil, Will McEntire, Dylan and injured hurlers Colin Fisher and Hunter Deitz, who both should be fine to pitch this upcoming season, are returnees and join a host of freshmen pitchers to give Van Horn a wealth of mound options.

“Gabe is solidified up there, one or two,” Van Horn said. “He’s pitched really well since he walked in the door a year and a half ago. I think Wood has made a big move. His worst outing of the fall was his last one, and it was still pretty good.

“Two new guys, they could start or be out of the pen. So could Wood, and so could a few other guys. I think everybody has adapted well.”

Van Horn and his club have played over a dozen scrimmages this fall and he has an idea of who his starters might be, but an open mind.

“Nothing is in stone yet,” Van Horn said. “Even if it was the first weekend of the ’25 season, that doesn’t mean it’s the way it’s going to go when we get to conference play. I think there’s still a lot of jobs to be won, and we’ll figure that out as time goes on.”

It has been a different look to fall ball than previous years.

“It’s been a good fall,” Van Horn said. “The guys have worked extremely hard. It’s been a different fall for us. We’ve changed a lot of things up. It’s been pretty competitive.
  
 “…Haven’t scrimmaged as much. That’s probably the first thing I could tell you. We don’t have near as many at-bats as we’ve had probably the previous seven or eight falls here. Normally probably around 80 at-bats is what you’d get in the fall.

“…The guys are mostly 40 at-bats maybe. Just because we’ve done a lot more just practicing. What I mean by that is working on skills and really offensively working on other things besides just hitting. Working on a lot of base-running and bunting. Things like that. Putting in a lot of time with that. Hopefully it’ll pay off.”

Van Horn has liked what he has seen out of situational baseball, setting up different scenarios inside the scrimmages.

“It’s helped us get better,” Van Horn said. “I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to hide anything. We feel like we do have some guys that can run. There’s going to be days where the other team is awfully good on the mound or things aren’t going our way or the wind’s blowing in.

“We can still hit home runs. We’ve got power. We’ve got athletes and yeah, to answer your question, yeah, I feel like with most of the lineups we can put out there we’re going to be a lot better equipped to score runs so to speak.”

Van Horn’s stated intent was to become a more athletic team and has attempted far more stolen bases this fall than in previous years.

“Well I know that we’ve worked at it a lot,” Van Horn said. “We should be able to run when other teams are not paying attention. We’re also going to work it into our offense. We have worked it into our offense a lot more, where maybe we’re taking more chances. You know in the fall you’re going to run wild if you think that’s what you can do and that’s what we did. But it made us better.

“I’d say in the last 10 days, our pitchers have done a lot better job of holding runners, being able to defend it. It helped everybody. It helped us gain a little confidence in stealing bases or having the opportunity to steal them, and then on the defensive end, pitchers and middle infielders, whoever, covering the base.”

Fundamentals have been stressed even more than usual this fall.

“You know sometimes you assume things as a coach,” Van Horn said. “The guys, when you think about it, the kids we get out of high school, they don’t work on a lot of things … they probably do in high school, but in summer ball they just play. So they’re not working on refining things like base-running, bunting, bunting for a hit. Maybe even throwing the ball through the cutoff man. Whatever.

“Some organizations are better than others at teaching those things. But we put in a lot of time with that. We felt like we needed to do that, just to make sure we’re good at it when spring rolls around.”

Photo by John D. James