FAYETTEVILLE -- No. 4 Arkansas took an early lead and built on it the remainder of the game for a seven-inning, run-rule 14-3 win over Grambling Tuesday afternoon at Baum-Walker Stadium.
Every Arkansas starter got at least one hit with the exception of second baseman Nolan Souza, but he did have an RBI ground out. Kuhio Aloy had four hits and a walk in five at bats. Brent Iredale had one hit, walked three times and was hit by a pitch also reaching base five times. Rocco Peppi had two hits in three at bats and knocked in four runs. In all the Razorbacks had 14 hits to only four for Grambling. Dave Van Horn was pleased how the team played.
"I thought our team did a great job of kind of treating, just like a bunch of professionals, coming out and playing after the big, emotional weekend," Van Horn said. "Yesterday was a light day. A day off, for the most part. For them to come out and just bounce around, have fun and play pretty well for the most part, it was good to see."
Ryder Helfrick slammed a home run, Justin Thomas Jr. had two hits and Peppi, who has been struggling at the plate, had the big day plating runs.
"Yeah, I mean, that’s one reason I wanted to get Peppi back out there," Van Horn said. "He’s a good hitter, and it’s good to see him get a couple of hits. Get hit by a pitch. I think he drove in four runs, or so. Three or four today. It was a big confidence day for him. He knows he can hit. It just hasn’t happened yet. Then you start pressing. You’re at a new school and all that if you don’t get off to a good start. You know Souza, he’s really pressing. It’s one reason I played him today. See if we could get him to feel better in the box, and I think he did a better job today. He didn’t have much to show for it, but he did drive in a run with a walk, no, a ground ball to second, or something. But yeah, the guys you mentioned, pretty good players. Good hitters, and sometimes you just need to get some at-bats under your belt and relax. Hopefully, that happened for a couple of those guys today."
No one it hitting the ball better than Kuhio Aloy. He has crushed the ball in each game he has played and Tuesday was no different.
"He’s hot," Van Horn said. "I mean, he’s got some bat speed, obviously. We need it. I think what was his… He had four hits today and the exit velocity that was the slowest was like 106 or107. Pretty amazing. The single up the middle, we didn’t even see it in the dugout. It was kind of a weird light at the time down there with the shade and stuff. It was absolutely smoked. He’s confident. When he wasn’t playing, he just waited his time and kept working. His batting practice today was really good. First time we hit on the field in about three weeks here. I mean, we didn’t hit on the field for like the whole week before we opened up, so it was good to get out there a little bit and swing the bat. It’s hard to explain it. He’s a good hitter. I really loved his last at-bat when he hit that line drive to right field in the last at-bat."
The Razorbacks used five pitchers on the day with starter Ben Bybee (1-0) getting the win. He worked three innings, allowed one hit, a run, fanned a pair and walked two. Others taking the mound were Colin Fisher, Aiden Jimenez, Steele Eaves and then Carson Wiggins. Wiggins struggled Sunday in Arlington and was removed. On Tuesday he retired all three hitters he faced, struck out one and threw eight strikes in 10 pitches.
"Oh yeah," Van Horn said. "That’s the reason we wanted him out there. Coach called down there before he came out. I think the comment was “Make sure you’re ready to roll and you want to go out there.” and he was like “Oh yeah.” He didn’t care that it could be a run-rule game. A lot of times pitchers don’t like that a whole lot. They’re just putting me in at the end. He wanted to get on the mound. What happened in Arlington, we hadn’t seen that here. He threw two balls to the backstop, walked a guy. It just wasn’t good. His misses had been fairly close. Today, right back on it, so hopefully that’s over with and he learned from it and now he’s good from here on in."
Starter Gage Wood who left Sunday's game with shoulder pain. He had an MRI on Monday and Van Horn has a tentative time for him to return with start of SEC play targeted.
"Kinda what I had mentioned to me, maybe the quickest you’d see him is in three weeks," Van Horn said. "The longest if everything goes good would be 5-6 weeks. Just that impingement in there, the MRI didn’t show any tears, any damage from what I’ve been told. Now he’s got to get the inflammation down in there and then build back up. Knowing Gage, it’ll be shorter than longer because it’s hard to outwork him."
Had there been any previous concerns with Wood?
"There hadn’t been any concern," Van Horn said. "I had a few things explained to me about what he does, but no there has been nothing with him."
It appears that lefty Landon Beidelschies will replace Wood until he returns.
"Yeah, I mean it’s not 100%, but that would be the obvious choice as of right now unless something changes," Van Horn said. "We had four starters the first weekend with four games in a row and then three this past weekend and brought him out of the pen. I mean, I can’t tell you 100%, but that’s what it’s looking like."
Arkansas scored runs in every inning except the second. The big inning was the fifth when they sent six runners across the plate.
Grambling starter Nick Robinson (0-1) took the loss. Arkansas (7-1) will return to action Friday when they play host to Charlotte for a three-game series with the first game at 3 p.m. Van Horn not sure what to expect from the visitors.
"You know, not much," Van Horn said. "We were looking at some video of them from their series this past weekend. They’re starting four right-handers. They have a good closer. They made a nice comeback last Friday. They were losing pretty good and they came back and won that game or I think they woulda got swept. It’s still early and different league and teams have a lot of new players all the time now, so sometimes you gotta dig into some things. And when they get junior college players, you can’t find anything hardly. The thing is, I tell our guys if we just do what we can do, the scouting reports are great and they’re going to help you, but if you go play well, you throw strikes and you field, put the bat on the ball, you’ve got a chance to win every game."
Photos Crant Osborne
