Arkansas baseball – Page 3 – Syndication Server

Arkansas baseball’s season ends in uninspiring loss to SEMO

That’s a wrap. Arkansas’ season ended with 6-3 loss to Southeast Missouri State on Sunday.

Arkansas’ season ended mostly with a whimper on Sunday.

The Razorbacks were held to just six hits in a 6-3 loss to Southeast Missouri State in the losers’ bracket of the Fayetteville Regional at Baum-Walker Stadium.

With the loss, Arkansas finishes its season 44-16. The team went just 14-13 in its last 27 games after getting off to a 30-3 start and a consensus No. 1 ranking in Top 25 polls for five consecutive weeks.

They looked nothing like that team Sunday, because they weren’t.

That Arkansas team found ways to win all sorts of games, such as when they erased a 7-0 deficit against Texas Tech in a memorable midweek thriller back on April 16.

Or when they overcame a 6-0 deficit against Mississippi State after three innings to win the rubber match of a hard-fought conference series toward the end of the regular season.

The Arkansas team that took the field Sunday never even led in the game after SEMO (36-26) delivered an early punch with a two-out solo home run from Ty Stauss off Gage Wood in the bottom of the first inning.

With nothing doing for the Hogs’ bats against Redhawks starter Collin Wilma, things stayed 1-0 until the fourth when Ben Palmer coasted into second with a leadoff double. Wood issued a walk to Stauss before Josh Cameron ripped an RBI single into right for a 2-0 SEMO lead.

Stauss took third on the play thanks to a throwing error from Ben McLaughlin in right field. After Wood was replaced by right-hander Jake Faherty, Michael Mugan reached to make it 3-0. Bryce Cannon moved the runners to second and third with a bunt, then Shea McGahan hit a two-out single that made it 4-0.

Arkansas didn’t get its first hit until Peyton Holt hit a solo home run with two out in the fifth inning. But the Razorbacks couldn’t capitalize on a golden opportunity that would follow later that inning.

After Wilma hit two batters and walked another, the Diamond Hogs left the bases loaded when Logan Katen got Hudson White on a groundout. Arkansas finished 2-for-9 with runners on base Sunday and was 0-for-4 with men in scoring position.

Brooks Kettering got the run back for SEMO in the bottom of the fifth with a solo homer off Faherty. In the seventh, Kettering added an RBI single off Will McEntire that made it 6-1.

Parker Rowland hit a two-run homer in the ninth off SEMO reliever Payton Lawrence but it was too little, too late for Arkansas.

Kyle Miller struck out Nolan Souza for the second out and Peyton Stovall flied to left to end the game — and the Razorbacks’ once-promising season.

It’s the second straight year that Arkansas has failed to advance past the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament after being eliminated by TCU a season ago. This year, it was another Big 12 team in purple (Kansas State) that started the Diamond Hogs on their way to being finished off by a SEMO team that had to win its conference tournament just to reach the postseason.

The Redhawks outhit Arkansas, 9-6. Katen (2-0) threw 2 1/3 innings in relief for the win, with Wood (3-2) suffering the loss for the Hogs.

With Sunday’s loss, Arkansas closed the season 4-9 in its last 13 games.

With season on the line, Arkansas baseball turns to Gage Wood

Gage Wood will start Arkansas’ elimination game of the Fayetteville Regional against Southeast Missouri State Sunday.

It’s officially win or go home for Arkansas baseball.

After a blistering 30-3 start to the season through mid-April and a subsequent No. 1 ranking atop the USA TODAY Sports baseball coaches poll for five straight weeks, the Razorbacks find themselves fighting for their postseason lives after dropping the winners’ bracket game of the Fayetteville Regional to Kansas State Saturday night at Baum-Walker Stadium.

The Diamond Hogs (44-15) will have to win three games over the next two days to advance to the Super Regionals, starting with Sunday’s elimination game against Southeast Missouri State at 1 p.m. CDT.

After Saturday’s loss, in which starter Hagen Smith gave up six runs (all earned) in the fifth inning to doom Arkansas, coach Dave Van Horn was rather defiant when asked about the long shot of winning three straight without seemingly having the pitching to do it.

“We can do it. We might not do it, but we can,” Van Horn said.

To that end, the Razorbacks will first turn to right-hander Gage Wood. Batesville native will be making his third start of the season when he faces the Redhawks’ Collin Wilma (3-5, 5.60 ERA).

No one expects Wood to go the distance; his longest outing this season were the five innings he pitched two weekends ago in the Razorbacks’ lone win at Texas A&M. Wood held the Aggies to two earned runs on seven hits that night. Arkansas rallied late to wrap up the SEC West division title.

Wood’s last outing was in the SEC Tournament against Kentucky when Van Horn had largely already waved the white flag for the rest of the week in Hoover. Wood allowed four runs and six hits in 2 2/3 innings in relief of Smith, given a short leash that day by a coach who already had an eye toward the NCAA Regionals.

Wood’s only other start this season came against Missouri State on April 30. He threw three scoreless innings in a 12-7 Arkansas midweek victory, retiring nine of the 10 batters he faced after yielding one hit and not allowing a walk.

Arkansas could benefit from a similar outing Sunday (not to mention a lot of run support) when it faces a SEMO team that lit up Razorback pitching for nine runs in Friday’s regional opener. In that game, SEMO erased an 8-0 deficit to tie the game before Arkansas rallied and pulled away for good in their last two innings at the plate.

Should Arkansas defeat SEMO, they’d meet Kansas State Sunday night at 6 p.m. The Hogs would need to beat the Wildcats twice in order to avoid being eliminated in the Regional round of the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year.

Sunday’s game against SEMO will be available to stream on ESPN+, meaning there will be no direct “television” coverage of the game on ESPN’s family of traditional broadcast channels (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, or SEC Network).

The game can be heard on the Razorbacks Sports Network through local FM and AM radio as well as streamed through the Varsity Network App.

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Arkansas baseball’s season on the brink after loss to Kansas State

Kansas State tagged Arkansas ace Hagen Smith for six runs in the fifth inning to put the Razorbacks in a must-win situation Sunday.

Hagen Smith gave up six runs in the fifth inning as top-seeded Arkansas fell to third-seeded Kansas State, 7-6, at the Fayetteville Regional of the NCAA Tournament Saturday night at Baum-Walker Stadium.

Arkansas (44-15 overall) totaled 13 hits but left 13 on base as Kansas State (34-24) advanced to the regional’s championship round after beating both the Razorbacks and Louisiana Tech Saturday.

Arkansas will face Southeast Missouri State (35-26) in an elimination game Sunday at 1 p.m CDT. It’s the first of three games in a row the Razorbacks will have to win in order to survive and advance to the Super Regionals.

In the meantime, Kansas State put itself in the driver’s seat with its six-run inning off Smith.

The game seemed like a pitchers’ duel early on with both Smith and Wildcats starter Jackson Wentworth matching zeroes through four innings.

Arkansas, playing as the visiting team, broke through for the game’s first runs in the top of the fifth. Ty Wilmsmeyer scored on a wild pitch before Hudson White continued his hot hitting with an RBI single to center that gave the Diamond Hogs a 2-0 lead.

Things started to go sideways for Smith when he issued back-to-back walks to Danniel Rivera and David Bishop leading off the bottom of the fifth. One out later, Chuck Ingram and Brendan Jones hit back-to-back RBI singles to tie the game.

After Jaden Parsons’ squeeze bunt scored Ingram from third to give the Wildcats a 3-2 lead, Kaelen Culpepper provided the big blast — a three-run home run to right that put Kansas State ahead 6-2. K-State finished with just five hits in the game, three of them coming in the ill-fated fifth that saw Smith throw 33 pitches.

Arkansas got a solo home run from Jared Sprague-Lott in the seventh and an RBI double from White in the eighth to pull to within two at 6-4. But the Razorbacks stranded two on base in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings and were 6-for-22 for the night with men on base.

Kansas State added a decisive insurance run in the bottom of the eighth when English went deep off Ben Bybee for a 7-4 lead.

Arkansas put together a valiant effort in the ninth against Wildcats reliever Tyson Neighbors. After Wehiwa Aloy singled to lead off the inning, Peyton Holt hit a two-run homer to pull the Razorbacks to within a run.

Wilmsmeyer drew a two-out walk before Peyton Stovall struck out swinging to end the game.

Wentworth (5-5) picked up the win, allowing two runs on seven hits in 5 2/3 innings. Despite allowing four runs, Neighbors threw 67 pitches over the final 3 1/3 innings to pick up his ninth save.

ON DECK

Gage Wood (3-1, 3.86 ERA) will start Sunday’s game against Southeast Missouri State, coach Dave Van Horn announced. The Razorbacks defeated SEMO, 17-9, Friday. The Redhawks eliminated Louisiana Tech from the Fayetteville Regional earlier Saturday.

The winner of Sunday’s Arkansas-SEMO game will face Kansas State at 6 p.m.

Kansas State beats Louisiana Tech about 19 hours after game started

K-State will get Arkansas later Saturday in the winner’s bracket.

Kansas State had little trouble with Louisiana Tech on Friday and even less trouble with the Bulldogs on Saturday.

And both took place in the same game.

The three-seed in the Fayetteville Regional of the NCAA Tournament, Kansas State, knocked second-seeded Louisiana Tech, 19-4, Saturday morning in a game that had to postponed from Friday night after the rains came down too hard at Baum-Walker Stadium.

Louisiana Tech must turn around quickly and play Southeast Missouri State in an elimination game while K-State gets a short, required break before facing host Arkansas, which knocked off SEMO in the day game Friday.

Kansas State’s win Saturday morning came behind the strength of five home runs. The Wildcats scored in six of the nine innings and in every inning they scored, they scored at least two runs.

Arkansas and Kansas State entered the game with the worst and the third worst batting averages of any of the 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament. The Razorbacks scored 17 runs against the Redhawks on Friday.

The winner of the SEMO and La. Tech game on Saturday will still alive to play the loser of Arkansas and Kansas State on Sunday.

Arkansas baseball’s Saturday game at Fayetteville Regional to be televised by ESPNU

Fans hoping to watch Arkansas baseball without a streaming-only subscription Saturday night at the Fayetteville Regional are in luck.

Fans hoping to see the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Fayetteville Regional of the NCAA Baseball Tournament on one of the ESPN family of traditional broadcast channels Saturday are in luck.

The winners’ bracket game of the regional is scheduled for 8 p.m. CDT and will be televised by ESPNU. The Diamond Hogs (44-14 overall) will face Kansas State, which defeated Louisiana Tech 19-4 earlier in the day Saturday.

ESPNU is offered by most traditional cable companies as well as popular live TV services like YouTube TV and Sling.

Top-seeded Arkansas kicked off their regional with a 17-9 victory over fourth-seeded Southeast Missouri State on Friday but the game was limited to ESPN+, a streaming-only subscription service.

Derek Jones (play-by-play) and Jay Walker (commentary) will be the broadcast team for Saturday night’s game.

SEC Pitcher of the Year and Razorbacks ace Hagen Smith is scheduled to start against Kansas State. Smith is 9-1 with a 1.48 ERA in 15 starts this season. His 154 strikeouts in 79 innings trail only Wake Forest’s Chase Burns (184) among NCAA Division I pitchers.

Smith leads all Division I starters in ERA over the minimum innings pitched threshold and is a finalist for the coveted Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy.

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Who said Arkansas can’t hit?

SEMO coach Andy Sawyers wants to talk to you all on social media.

Andy Sawyers actually had the best post-game quote after Arkansas beat Southeast Missouri State, 17-9, in the first game of the Fayetteville Regional in the NCAA Tournament. “I guess I want to talk to whoever said Arkansas can’t hit,” the SEMO coach said. Sawyers, who played for Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn at Nebraska, was speaking of a Diamond Hogs lineup that entered the tournament with the lowest batting average among the 64 teams in play. The Razorbacks had 16 knocks, including six home runs, in Friday’s win. Van Horn was happy his offense came alive, but he also knows – having taken Arkansas to the NCAA Tournament every year but one in 20-plus years at the helm – the weekend is far from over. He had to use four bullpen arms, including their best reliever this season Gabe Gaeckle. Gaeckle threw 62 pitches, meaning he won’t pitch Saturday, though he could be available Sunday and certainly would Monday if the Razorbacks play that day. As for who Arkansas gets in the meantime, as of Saturday morning, it was still unclear. Torrential rain forced the postponement of Kansas State/Louisiana Tech to an 11 a.m. pick-up time Saturday. What Van did know Friday, however, was who was going to get the ball against either the Wildcats or Bulldogs. “He’ll be left-handed. His name is Smith.”

Arkansas out-slugs SEMO to win Fayetteville Regional opener

Hudson White and Ben McLaughlin combined for four home runs and 11 RBIs as Arkansas beat SEMO, 17-9, in the Fayetteville Regional Friday.

Arkansas got six home runs, including two apiece from Hudson White and Ben McLaughlin, to out-slug Southeast Missouri State, 17-9, in the opener of the Fayetteville Regional at Baum-Walker Stadium Friday.

White homered in his first and last at-bat of the game. His solo shot off Warhawks starter Haden Dow in the bottom of the first inning gave the Razorbacks an early 1-0 lead.

The Arkansas catcher ended his day in the eighth with a three-run blast to left-center that put the finishing touches on a five-RBI day. The home runs were White’s seventh and eighth of the season.

McLaughlin hit his eighth and ninth home runs, and the Razorbacks also got long balls from Wehiwa Aloy and Kendall Diggs in a 16-hit affair. McLaughlin finished his day with six RBIs.

Arkansas (44-14 overall) got out to an 8-0 lead after a seven-run second inning that was capped by a three-run shot from McLaughlin, only to see SEMO (34-26) score eight unanswered runs over three innings to tie the game at 8-all against Razorbacks starter Mason Molina and reliever Will McEntire.

Arkansas pulled back ahead in the fifth on back-to-back home runs from Aloy and Diggs for a 10-8 lead.

After SEMO’s Bryce Cannon doubled home Chance Resetich to make it 10-9, White sent the first pitch he saw from reliever Kyle Miller to right for an RBI sacrifice fly that pushed a run across for an 11-9 lead.

With two out, McLaughlin crushed his second homer of the day — a 413-foot three-run blast to right that put the Diamond Hogs ahead, 14-9.

White’s three-run homer with two out in the eighth came off Alex Hayes, the Warhawks’ sixth pitcher of the day.

Six players finished with two hits or more for Arkansas, including McLaughlin’s 3-for-5 performance. White (2-for-4), Aloy (2-5), Diggs (2-3), Peyton Holt (2-4) and Ty Wilmsmeyer (2-5) each picked up two hits.

Christian Foutch (1-0) earned his first win of the season in relief. The real star out of the Razorbacks’ bullpen was SEC Freshman of the Year Gabe Gaeckle. The right-hander held SEMO to one run in three innings of work despite allowing three walks and three hits. He struck out six in his 22nd appearance.

Jake Faherty pitched a scoreless ninth inning to close out the game.

Collin Wilma (2-5) suffered the loss for Southeast Missouri State, allowing three runs in three innings. Molina lasted just 1 2/3 innings on the bump for Arkansas and left after allowing six hits.

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Former Arkansas catcher Grant Koch earns praise from top MLB pitching prospect Paul Skenes

Former Arkansas catcher Grant Koch made his Major League debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday after six seasons in the minor leagues.

After six years in the minor leagues, former Arkansas Razorbacks catcher Grant Koch is in the big leagues.

How long he stays there is an entirely different matter, but Koch made his Major League debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday. He reached base once, going 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and a walk in the Pirates’ 10-2 victory over the Detroit Tigers in the second game of a doubleheader at Comerica Park.

Koch’s road to the majors is unorthodox — and certainly not one that resembles any of the hype and fanfare that awaited prized Pirates rookie Paul Skenes, the top pitching prospect in all of baseball and No. 1 overall draft pick last year whom Koch has been paired with in starts this season.

Skenes helped lead LSU to the 2023 National Championship in the College World Series. By contrast, Koch was part of a team that finished seventh in its division in the Triple-A International League.

Koch has spent the past six years slowly working his way up through the Pirates’ system after being selected in the fifth round of the 2018 Major League Baseball Draft.

He’s a career .203 hitter in 313 games and batted .167 in 17 games this year with the Indianapolis Indians, Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate, before being added to the Pirates’ taxi squad recently.

The reason for Koch’s Major League debut? His strong relationship with Skenes, which the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Noah Hiles detailed this week.

The 27-year-old Koch caught all seven of Skenes’ starts this season at Indianapolis. With the benefit of injuries at a position where there’s traditionally little depth, and a bit of dumb luck, the former Razorback nonetheless made it to the big leagues.

“He’s the whole picture as a catcher,” Skenes told the Post-Gazette. “We got to know each other really well in Indianapolis this year. We got to know each other a little bit during spring training, too. I think he and I have clicked probably as well as any catcher I’ve thrown to.”

Skenes’ ERA stands at 2.45 through four starts with the Pirates. He improved to 2-0 after throwing six strong innings Wednesday, holding Detroit to two runs on three hits while striking out nine batters and walking one.

Koch, a native of Fayetteville who attended Fayetteville High School, played three years for the Razorbacks between 2016-18. He hit 22 home runs in an Arkansas uniform.

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After six years in minors, Grant Koch is getting a call to The Show

What a journey for Fayetteville’s own. Congrats, Grant.

Six years of minor-league baseball and Grant Koch is finally getting his shot.

The former Arkansas catcher is being called up by the Pittsburgh Pirates from Triple-A Indianapolis. He will replace catcher Joey Bart.

Koch had a slash line of .167/.211/.259 for the Indians in 2024, but is coming of a 2023 in which an OPS of .708, a career high. The Fayetteville native and FHS product has been in the Pittsburgh organization since being taken in the fifth round by the franchise in 2018.

Koch is the second Arkansas player taken out of the nine Razorbacks taken in that draft who signed to make it to the Majors. Evan Lee, a two-way player during his time with the Diamond Hogs and also an Arkansas native, pitched in four games for the Nationals in 2022.

Of the nine players – not including Zack Plunkett and Isaiah Campbell, each of who were selected but did not sign – taken that year, only Koch, Lee, Jax Biggers and Jake Reindl are still playing in the MLB/MILB system.

Koch played three years with the Diamongs Hogs (2016-18) during which time he collected an .802 OPS and hit 22 home runs.

His biggest chance of playing time with the Pirates will be on days which Paul Skenes starts. The two were battery mates earlier in the season in Indianapolis.

Where Arkansas baseball ranks in final coaches poll before NCAA Tournament

Arkansas stayed at No. 4 in the final USA TODAY Sports baseball coaches poll ahead of the NCAA Tournament.

The Arkansas Razorbacks stayed at No. 4 in the final USA TODAY Sports baseball coaches poll ahead of the 2024 NCAA Baseball Tournament Monday.

The top four teams in the coaches poll remained the same as last week with Tennessee (50-11 overall) occupying the top spot for the fourth consecutive week. The Volunteers won the SEC Tournament on Sunday with a 4-3 win over LSU. They earned the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament Monday.

Kentucky (40-14) stayed at No. 2 in the coaches poll with Texas A&M (44-13) remaining at No. 3. North Carolina (42-13) rose one spot to No. 5.

Arkansas (43-14) earned the No. 5 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament and will welcome Louisiana Tech, Kansas State, and Southeast Missouri to its four-team, double-elimination regional at Baum-Walker Stadium this weekend. The Razorbacks will face Southeast Missouri at 2 p.m. CDT Friday. The game can be seen on ESPN+.

In other rankings, Arkansas stayed at No. 5 in Baseball America’s weekly Top 25.