Diamond Hogs complete sweep of Little Rock as pitching staff blanks Trojans again

BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON

FAYETTEVILLE – If your pitching staff doesn’t allow the other team to score during its two days in your ballpark, odds go up exponentially that you will sweep that foe.

That’s what happened Wednesday night as No. 4 Arkansas downed Little Rock 4-0 in its final mid-week home game of the regular season.

The Razorbacks (36-7, 13-5 in SEC action) had blanked the Trojans 10-0 in a seven-inning run-rule victory Tuesday at Baum-Walker Stadium.

Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn thought it was a nice tune up for this weekend’s SEC series at Florida (28-15, 6-12) ) that begins Froday.

“It was a good two-game series for us,” Van Horn said. “I don’t feel like we wore ourselves out, and now we get to go play in Florida.”

Eight Arkansas pitchers combined to throw 16 innings in the two games without Little Rock crossing the plate.

“I thought it was a great job by our pitching staff, obviously,” Van Horn said. “Back-to-back shutouts. Just threw a lot of strikes, got ahead a lot today.”

Arkansas starter Collin Fisher, Steele Eaves (1-0) and Cole Gibler all threw two scoreless innings on Wednesday with Ben Bybee, Christian Foutch and Will McEntire following with an inning each to finish off the contest.

“You know, Fisher, he was throwing the ball, that’s as good as he’s thrown in a while,” Van Horn said. “Obviously, we’d have loved to have left him in there longer, but we just feel like we might need him on the weekend, so we brought in Eaves.

“We decided to go with the young guys, kind of there early with a couple of those guys, Eaves and Gibler. Give Bybee one inning, and I thought he did a nice job. Foutch went an inning. McEntire went an inning, and it worked out.”

Gibler fanned six of the eight batters he faced in his two-inning stint.

“It’s hard to pick up the spin on his breaking ball, Van Horn said. “Coming out of the hand, it looks like a fastball to the hitters. It’s just really tight.

“I’d say it probably tunnels the same. If you know what that means, it just means it looks like it’s going to be a fastball, then it drops. Now, you know, they see it a little bit, they get used to it, they figure it out.

“But his role has been an inning or two here at the most, and he’s been getting a lot of Ks in his inning or two. So, it’s really hard to pick up his offspeed stuff and he’s got a good fastball.”

Gibler was happy to be back out on the mound after giving up xxx against Texas A&M.

“…I wanted the ball,’ Gibler said. I know I landed my curveball more. I don’t like to rely on it. I think it’s obviously my best pitch.

‘But if I can’t throw that and I can only throw a fastball, they’re gonna hit it. So being able to mix well today, I think is what I did good.”

Van Horn had noted that injured left hander Hunter Deitz had progressed to where he might pitch in the series, but he didn’t.

Tate McGuire started and went five inning on Tuesday when Dylan Carter and Carson Wiggins worked a frame each.

Charles Davlan and Wehiwa Aloy both had two of Arkansas 8 hits in a game the Razorbacks led just 2-0 entering the seventh-inning stretch.

Aloy’s 16th home run of the year – a solo shot in the seventh – made it 3-0 and Davalan’s run-scoring single in the eighth added the games final tally.

Arkansas had taken the 2-0 lead in the third on Brent Iredale’s bases-loaded walk and a wild pitch that scored Aloy.

Iredale had been mired in a slump, but hit his 11th home run on Tuesday and had another hit and two walks on Wednesday as his batting average rose to .303.

Van Horn saw a difference in his Australian-born third baseman the last two games.

“Yeah, a little more bat speed,” van Horn said. “ Trying to pull the ball a little bit more, but he did let a curveball get deep yesterday and hammered it into that net.

“Today, you know, he hit the first pitch right through the shift, hard. I guess just, the swing seems better. It seems a little more powerful. It’s not as uphill.

“.…You’re not going to square it up every time. I just see him kid of getting back to where he was a month ago.”

Iredale decided to quit stressing about not being as productive as earlier in the season.

“I think I’ve become more relaxed,” Iredale said. “Just thinking like, I have the guys in front of me, behind me, they can do it. So I’m sort of just taking the pressure off myself that I brought on myself.

“Like, ‘Okay, I’m good, do me and let them do them’. I mean, It’s working out, which is good.”

It was a night when Arkansas left 10 runners on base.

“I thought we played solid defense for two days,” Van Horn said. “Just didn’t give them anything. Wasn’t like a big-time offensive day for us.

“…Played a couple of different guys and rested some guys. Brought a couple guys off the bench, maybe defensively, a little bit of experience because the game was still tight.”

Photo courtesy of Razorbacks Communications