Razorback senior shortstop Jalen Battles (#2) from San Antonio, TX throws deep from the hole to first for a put-out against Illinois State at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville, AR
Nate Allen
FAYETTEVILLE - Two out of three ain’t bad they say, but his Razorbacks’ hitting with exceptions wasn’t good, Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said after the Razorbacks split a Sunday doubleheader with Stanford and the University of Louisiana concluding the Karbach Baseball Classic in Round Rock, Texas.
Arkansas, now 4-2 and headed home to play the University of Nebraska-Omaha at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Baum-Walker Stadium, opened its part of the 4-team 3-day Karbach Classic Friday night at the Texas Rangers minor league affiliate Round Rock Express’ Dell Diamond beating Indiana, 5-2, lost, 5-0 Sunday to Stanford following Saturday’s postponement because of inclement weather and finally on Jalen Battles’ eighth- inning 3-run home run overcame the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, 6-4 late Sunday night.
Greenbrier’s Cayden Wallace, 4 for 4 against Indiana with two doubles and a RBI, and Preseason All-American second baseman Robert Moore, 2 for 4 with two RBI, did hit well Friday supporting winning starter Conner Noland allowing but one run and scattering five hits through six complete with 10 strikeouts, and Kole Ramage’s 3-inning save allowing just a run.
With just three singles against Stanford’s trio of Quinn Mathews, six innings and 10 strikeouts, Tommy O’Rourke and Braden Montgomery, no Hog did much hitting against the Cardinal Sunday.
Arkansas mustered but six hits against Louisiana and trailed, 3-2 before Battles 3-run eighth-inning home run.
Each scored in the ninth. Ramage bailed out redshirt freshman Nick Griffin, debuting with a good eighth inning but mired in a ninth-inning jam, for his second save of the weekend, this time on behalf of reliever Zebulon Vermillion who had replaced 6-inning starter Jaxon Wiggins opening the seventh.
“You know we’re not playing real good right now,” Van Horn said Sunday night. “It just wasn’t easy today and it started early in the game against Stanford. We’re just not swinging the bats very well. We finally got a big swing there (Battles’ 3-run home run) in today’s second game. Good win to get out of here when we’re not playing that well. We’ve got to get a few things figured out and we’ve got to get our offense cranking.”
Freshman lefty Hagen Smith, practically unhittable throwing six shutout innings in one of Arkansas’ 2 out of 3 series the previous weekend against Illinois State in Fayetteville, was yanked down 3-0 in the third.
Relievers Isaac Bracken, Heston Tole, Elijah Trest and Miller Pleimann pitched crediably thereafter against Stanford.
“It’s good to see some of our pitchers work out of some jams today,” Van Horn said, “I felt like Stanford could have scored a lot more runs.”