Arkansas picks up statement win to open series at Kentucky
The No. 2 Arkansas Razorbacks (40-7, 17-5 SEC) made a statement to the Southeastern Conference with a dominant 10-3 win at No. 8 Kentucky (33-10, 16-6 SEC) on Friday evening at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington, Kentucky.
Arkansas ace left-hander Hagen Smith was dominant all night, as he struck out 14 batters in six innings of one-run ball. Smith gave up just the one run on three hits with just two walks on 101 total pitches. The junior from Bullard, Texas, sat down 14 of the 23 batters he faced on strikes.
Kentucky was able to strike first with a run in the bottom of the third, but Arkansas scored 10 unanswered after that, including six in the top of the seventh. Four of those runs were driven in by the bat of junior right fielder Kendall Diggs. The Wildcats added a pair in the bottom of the ninth, but it was too little, too late.
"Great pitching performance by Hagen," Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said postgame. "A lot of contributions offensively up and down the lineup. It was just a really good team win on the road. Hagen’s stuff was amazing, especially from about the third inning on. He ramped it up a little bit. He was amazing."
Arkansas had 11 total hits, five hits with runners in scoring position and three hits with two outs, while the Wildcats had just four hits in the whole game. Second baseman Peyton Stovall, catcher Hudson White and Diggs all had multi-hit games and that trio combined for seven of the team's nine runs batted in.
Arkansas wasted a leadoff single from Stovall in the top of the first when the next three batters were retired in a row. Smith took care of business with a 1-2-3 bottom half that was ended with his first strikeout.
The Razorbacks put the first two batters on base in the top of the second, but they ended up missing another opportunity by stranding a pair. After Smith struck out the side in the bottom half of the second, Kentucky starter Trey Pooser also sat down three in a row in the top of the third.
Kentucky finally got to Smith with two outs in the bottom of the third, when nine-hole hitter Devin Burkes singled to third and then scored via an RBI double to center from leadoff hitter Ryan Waldschmidt, who gave the Wildcats a 1-0 lead after three innings.
Arkansas stranded another runner in the top of the fourth and then Smith had a better frame by striking out three batters to work around a one-out single in the bottom of the fourth.
The Hogs put a runner in scoring position quickly with a leadoff double from catcher Hudson White in the top of the fifth and he was driven in with a 101 mile per hour RBI double to left from Stovall with one out that tied the game at 1-1.
Smith issued a leadoff walk in the bottom half of the fifth, and the runner made it all the way to third with one out just for Smith to strikeout two in a row to get to 11 punchouts in the game.
Arkansas drew back-to-back one-out walks against Pooser in the top of the sixth, and the Wildcats elected to bring on right-handed reliever Cameron O'Brien in relief. Razorbacks right-fielder Kendall Diggs took O'Brien's third pitch deep to right-center for a two-run double that gave the Hogs a 3-1 lead.
"Yeah, we need him," Van Horn said of Diggs. "Just kind of put him down there in the order hoping those guys would get on in front of him and he would have an opportunity drive in some runs, and he did it."
Before the Wildcats could get out of the frame, they made another change to left-hander Jackson Nove, who allowed a pinch hit RBI double to Ross Lovich that made Arkansas' lead 4-1 before Nove finally got the 'Cats out of the frame.
After issuing a leadoff walk in the bottom of the sixth, Smith responded with three straight strikeouts to push his game total to 14 on the night.
The Razorbacks broke things wide open with two outs in the top of the seventh, when Diggs drove a two-RBI single to center to give the Hogs a five-run lead. After a pitching change, White hit an RBI single through the left side that made it a 7-1 lead for Arkansas.
Kentucky relief pitcher Cooper Robinson then issued three straight walks, two of which scored runs, and then a wild pitch scored Arkansas' 10th run to give the road team a 10-1 lead after a six-run top of the seventh.
Veteran right-hander Will McEntire worked a scoreless bottom of the seventh in relief for Arkansas, and Kentucky reliever Colby Frieda did the same against the Razorbacks in the top of the eighth.
McEntire ran into a pair of baserunners with one out in the bottom of the eighth before he stranded both to keep the lead at nine runs entering the ninth inning.
Following a scoreless top of the ninth from the Arkansas bats, the Hogs brought on right-hander Dylan Carter in the bottom half. With rain coming down at a decent rate, Carter struggled by walking two and giving up two runs on one hit before he could close things down.
"(McEntire) came in and gave us a couple innings, then obviously Carter was pitching in the rain," Van Horn said. "Man, there were a couple of pitches that were extremely close that he didn’t get. And he hung on there. He gave us a chance to save our bullpen. He’s still building up.
"I told him he’s going to pitch in some leverage situations before this season’s over and we appreciated him getting us through that inning. But yeah, we got to save our bullpen a little bit."
Up next, the Razorbacks and Wildcats will meet for Game 2 of the series at 1 p.m. CT Saturday at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington, Kentucky. The game will be streamed live on SEC Network+.
Box Score
Coming soon.