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After its pitching faltered early, Arkansas’ offense couldn’t get the big late hit that has been a staple of this year’s team Tuesday night.

Even though the Razorbacks managed to get the tying run to the plate in the ninth, a five-run third inning propelled Oklahoma to an 8-5 midweek win over the nation’s unanimous No. 1 team at Baum-Walker Stadium.

It is the second straight loss for Arkansas after it won the first 12 games of the season, meaning it is now 12-2 on the eve of SEC play.

“Our starting pitching only gave us a couple innings and first couple guys out of the pen really struggled,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “It's hard to overcome a five-run inning, especially when they score all five with two outs or you're one pitch away from getting out of the inning and throw a curve ball, leave it down the middle, give up a base hit up the middle and a few pitches later they hit a two-run homer.”

A former weekend rotation arm, left-hander Patrick Wicklander made his first start of 2021 and gave the Razorbacks only 1 2/3 innings before getting pulled.

He got out of a bases-loaded jam in the second, but reliever Kole Ramage was on the mound during that big third inning by Oklahoma. The right-hander gave up a leadoff double off the wall to Tyler Hardman and a soft liner to Conor McKenna that Jalen Battles couldn’t quite snag and fell for a hit.

The Sooners advanced the runners to second and third on a sacrifice bunt by Tanner Tredaway, but Ramage bounced back with a strikeout to eliminate the sacrifice fly and RBI ground out.

Getting the third out proved troublesome, though. Kendall Pettis lined the first pitch he saw up the middle for a two-run single that tied the game at 2-2 and then Ramage hung an 0-2 pitch that Breydon Daniel hammered for two-run homer.

That put Oklahoma up for good, as it tacked on another run that inning and added three more - with the help of an error and a wild pitch for two of them - before the Razorbacks staged their mini-rally.

“Their offense did a nice job of laying off borderline pitches,” Van Horn said. “They took advantage of everything we gave them tonight.”

Rally Falls Short

Arkansas actually jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, capitalizing on an overturned double play, hit by pitch and error.

Considering the Razorbacks have struggled to produce early in games this season and the Sooners have struggled on the mound, it looked like the beginning of a possible slugfest.

Instead, left-hander Braden Carmichael settled in and quieted Arkansas’ bats. In fact, after giving up the two-run single to Brady Slavens, he proceeded to retire 12 Razorbacks in a row - including seven via strikeouts.

Zack Gregory broke up that streak with a fifth-inning single, but he was promptly erased on a double play. Carmichael also retired the first two batters in the sixth before Cayden Wallace singled and Slavens followed with a first-pitch home run that made it 8-4.