As Yogi Berra once said, “It was Deja vu all over again.”
For the second time in two days of the Arkansas baseball team’s Fall World Series intrasquad clash, the teams were tied at the end of the intended seven innings of play.
Monday’s game was declared a 9-9 tie, with a winner-take-all finale set for Tuesday.
But with the scored tied at 8-8 after seven on Tuesday, a winner had yet to be determined. So, the teams played an extra inning, utilizing Major League Baseball’s so-called “ghost runner” rule. Each team began the inning with no outs and a runner on second.
The Cardinal team mustered a run in the top of the eighth, on freshman Kade Smith’s sacrifice bunt, that brought home Missouri transfer Ty Wilmsmeyer.
From there, freshman right-hander Jaewoo Cho shut down the White squad, with a pair of strikeouts, to secure the 9-8 victory for the Cardinal.
“It was real competitive today – I just saw a lot of clutch things happen,” Razorback Head Coach Dave Van Horn said. “All fall has been competitive, The scrimmages have been really tight. It’s been good, and there’s a lot of competition. If we started tomorrow, I could put you a lineup on the field, but I’m sure there would be guys right there to play that aren’t on the field, and then there’s a fall off.
“As far as offensively, you’ve got about 12 guys that look like they’re ready to go, and then there are some other guys who are not quite there yet, at least day in and day out. It was real competitive today.”
That puts a wrap on the fall season for the Hogs, who were allowed 28 official practices within a 45-day window, starting in September.
“Believe me, they’re ready to get off the field,” Van Horn said. “You think about a guy like Kendall Diggs, who won the Cape Cod League championship and played all the way to almost mid-August, Jayson Jones won the league up there in Wisconsin and they were the last team to finish. He went home for one day and he came here. He had an okay fall, but he’s better than what he showed. Get him strong, get him ready to go and find out what he can do.”
Diggs, a junior outfielder, who will be heavily counted on in the spring, gave the White team a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first Tuesday, with a 412-foot rocket to right field that ricocheted off the William Hunter Family Development Center.
The Cardinal evened things up in the second, as Tarleton State transfer Jack Wagner ripped his second homer in as many days, a 394-foot shot over the left-center field fence. Hunter Grimes followed with a double that plated Wilmsmeyer, to make it 2-2.
Van Horn has been impressed by Wilmsmeyer, who has a chance to make an immediate impact when the regular season rolls around in February.
“He’s got a chance to be our starting first baseman, starting left fielder, starting DH,” the coach said. “That’s what I see. We brought him here to help solidify our lineup a little bit with some offense. He brings some attitude, and you got to see that a little bit the last couple of days.”
It didn’t take the White team long to jump back ahead in the third. Back-to-back run-scoring singles from Hutchinson Community College transfer Will Edmunson and senior Ben McLaughlin made it 4-2.
Smith, a Harding Academy graduate, then made his initial impact of the game with a monster 430-foot two-run blast to left-center, tying the score once again, 4-4, in the top of the fourth.
Sophomore infielder Reese Robinett, who had two hits in the game, gave the Cardinal its first lead with a 347-foot solo home run to right field, making it 5-4 in the top half of the fifth.
Left-hander Jordan Husky, a redshirt freshman, proceeded to keep the White team scoreless through the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, allowing just one hit and striking out four.
Robinett then hit a bases-loaded double to score two more, and senior Hunter Grimes knocked in another on a ground out, to put the Cardinal in front 8-4.
Down four, heading into the bottom of the seventh, the White team began to rally. They scored one on a wild pitch, before senior Parker Rowland stepped to the plate and unleashed a three-run, game-tying homer to right field.
With pitching running thin on both sides, Van Horn isn’t sure what would have transpired if the game went past eight innings. Which is why they decided to put runners on second to start the extra inning.
“We were to the point now that we had one inning left, maybe,” he said. “It worked out. The guys have watched some games. The MLB does it pretty much all the time.”
Overall, Van Horn, was content with what he saw, beginning his 22nd season at the helm. He was especially pleased to see a freshman finish the game on the mound with a clutch performance.
“You just saw a lot of clutch things happen, whether it’s Jaewoo finishing up the game throwing a bunch of sliders that start out knee-high and end up about ankle-high,” he said. “Guys didn’t make an adjustment, and he did what he needed to do. He got them out.”
The Razorbacks will now begin skill work and hitting groups next week
“A lot of hitting in groups starting inside, just working on things, working on bunting, working on base running,” Van Horn said. “And then a lot of defense with the infielders. Outfielders will be out here a little bit. That’s what we do from now until Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, we get them for another week max and then they’re out of here for a long time.
The season officially gets under way on Feb. 16, when James Madison comes to Fayetteville for a four-game series.
Count 'em up pic.twitter.com/pCDXy7kxyN
— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) October 18, 2023
