FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Three home runs for the Diamond Hogs paired with a zero in the earned run column on the other side paved the way for a 10-2 Arkansas victory Wednesday in the first of two exhibition games against the Texas Rangers’ Instructional League team.
After what should have been a 1-2-3 inning from junior right-handed pitcher Jaxon Wiggins, the Rangers got out to a two-run lead on a home run to dead center field. The Razorbacks slowly clawed back, leveling the score with leadoff blasts by Oklahoma transfer catcher Hudson Polk and sophomore infielder Kendall Diggs.
Sophomore second baseman Peyton Stovall’s RBI single in the fifth inning put the Hogs ahead for good, and junior outfielder Jace Bohrofen put an exclamation point on the evening with a 411-foot, three-run bomb that landed atop the development facility in right field.
“I thought our pitching was outstanding,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “They just kept throwing strikes. (The Rangers) lay off a lot of borderline pitches, and they work the count, but our pitchers did a great job.”
The six-man combination of Wiggins, Hunter Hollan, Cody Adcock, Jake Faherty, Zack Morris and Gage Wood limited Texas’ minor leaguers to four hits and five walks, sending them back to the dugout on strikes 15 times.
Wiggins continued his stellar fall with four strikeouts in two innings. He froze two hitters with fastballs of 98 and 96 miles per hour at the bottom of the strike zone in the first inning, blew another away with 97 in the second and received a favorable call for the fourth on a 79-mph curveball.
“We just saw him drop some breaking balls in there, and they looked polished,” Van Horn said. “It’s not like he’s just flipping it up there and changing his arm action. He’s getting there, and that’s one reason we wanted to give him the start tonight.”
Hollan, a lefty who previously pitched for San Jacinto Junior College, doubled down with four strikeouts of his own. He caught one of his four baserunners stealing and stranded the other three.
“There’s a really good chance he’s gonna be a starter,” Van Horn said.
Adcock, previously of Crowder College, turned in two hitless innings with three strikeouts of his own before returners Faherty and Morris recorded a hitless frame apiece. Wood, a freshman from Batesville, stranded two runners in scoring position with back-to-back looking Ks to finish things off in the ninth.
As pretty as the hurlers’ stat lines were, they could have been significantly better if not for poor defensive play. There were only two plays scored as errors, but the count easily could have exceeded five.
It began in the first when Caleb Cali, a junior college transfer, failed to haul in a pop-up to third base. That run came around to score on first baseman Josh Hatcher’s homer.
The Rangers got another free out in the second on a throwing error by Austin Peay transfer shortstop John Bolton, who made newcomers Jayson Jones and Ben McLaughlin work to secure outs at first base all night.
Jones made a gaffe of his own in the fourth inning, tracking a pop-up so poorly that it went down as a single, because he did not touch the ball.
“It just seemed like to me there were some super nervous people in the field,” Van Horn said.
While nerves seemed to play a factor in the field, it was quite the opposite at the plate. The Razorbacks drew nine walks to their 10 strikeouts at the plate and turned 10 hits into 10 runs. Diggs and Stovall led the charge with three knocks each.
The Hogs sent seven men to the plate in the seventh inning, which ended after just two outs. Creighton transfer outfielder Jared Wegner grounded into an RBI fielder’s choice, and McLaughlin’s sacrifice fly made it 5-2 before Bohrofen’s blast wrapped things up early.
Polk led off the eighth with his second extra-base hit of the night, and Bolton drove him in with a sac fly. Three batters latter, Stovall drove in his second run of the contest with a one-out single to cap the scoring at 10.
The two squads are set to square off again at 4 p.m. Thursday at Baum-Walker Stadium. The exhibition game will be seven innings, and admission is free.
