The No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks are set to welcome rival Ole Miss to Baum-Walker Stadium on Friday to begin a three-game set with the Rebels.
At the beginning of the season, fans of Southeastern Conference baseball circled this series date on their calendars, and they believed that they would be in for a great series between two of the conference’s elite programs. But, since time has passed, the series has lost its shine.
Ole Miss began the season in the top-5 of the national polls and would remain in the top-10 until the week of April 11, when Alabama swept the Rebels in Oxford, dropping them completely out of the top-25 from their No. 8 ranking a week prior.
Since the series loss to the Crimson Tide, Ole Miss has only mustered two wins in SEC games, dropping their last two series to South Carolina and arch-rival Mississippi State. Sandwiched in-between those series losses was a 13-3 thumping by Southeast Missouri State. The Rebels were able to get some revenge on Mississippi State however during a midweek contest, defeating the Bulldogs 5-2 at Trustmark Park in Pearl, Miss on Tuesday in a non-SEC affair.
Arkansas hopes for an offensive revival this weekend as they return to Baum-Walker Stadium for the first time in four games. The Razorbacks could only tally four runs in the first two games of their most recent conference series at Texas A&M before falling short in an 11-10 game on Sunday, where they lost just their second SEC series of the season.
The bats were relatively quiet during their midweek game with Central Arkansas in Little Rock on Tuesday as well, with the only true run was scored on an RBI single by [autotag]Dylan Leach[/autotag]. The final run scored thanks to a wild pitch with the bases loaded to give Arkansas the 2-1 walk-off win over the Bears in the 10th inning.
The Razorbacks square off with the Rebels for game one of the three-game set at Baum-Walker Stadium tonight at 6:30 p.m.