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HawgBeat's coverage of the Diamond Hogs' Road to Omaha is brought to you by CJ's Butcher Boy Burgers, which has locations in Fayetteville and Russellville.
Arkansas scored late, but it also jumped out to an early lead Tuesday night and cruised to a midweek win over an in-state foe.
Cayden Wallace’s solo home run in the game’s opening frame sparked the Razorbacks to four runs in the first three innings of their 7-2 victory over Little Rock at Baum-Walker Stadium.
It was a stark contrast to the last two games, when Arkansas didn’t score until the seventh and sixth innings and had to rally from 4-0 and 5-0 deficits to win its series with Auburn.
“We were cruising for a while, it was looking good,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “Little Rock hung in there with us, but it was good to get out and get that lead. It had been a while.”
The win improved the Razorbacks to 23-4 on the season and dropped the Trojans to 12-12.
With two outs in the first inning, Wallace turned on a 1-0 pitch and it landed in the left field bullpen for his team-lead-tying seventh home run of the season despite a strong wind that kept everything else in the ballpark.
“When he hit it, I was kind of a little bit amazed that it fought through that wind,” Van Horn said. “He hit it so hard it was kind of hooking and the wind didn’t hurt it quite as much because the wind was pushing it that way.
“The wind knocked it down a little bit, it just couldn’t get it down. I didn’t know if it was going to get out when he hit it because of the wind. He just put a really good swing on that pitch.”
The very next inning, Christian Franklin got things started with a double and eventually scored when Jalen Battles lined a single the other way for an RBI. With the bases loaded, Robert Moore tacked on another run with a sacrifice fly.
Franklin’s second double of the day likely would have been a home run without the wind, but instead hit off the wall and allowed Brady Slavens to score all the way from first.
That made it 4-0, which would have been enough, but the Razorbacks added to their lead with a run-scoring wild pitch in the seventh and RBIs by Jacob Nesbit and Moore in the eighth.
For Arkansas, the win avenged a loss to Little Rock in the schools’ first ever regular-season meeting on the diamond back in 2019. The Trojans blew that game open late and won 17-7, but the Razorbacks responded by making it back to Omaha.
“Honestly, I really don’t think we made a big deal about it at all,” Van Horn said. “We just felt like it was another game. I haven’t said one thing about that game, I haven’t talked about Little Rock being an in-state school. I never brought it up one time talking to the team.
“I just told them the next two days we need to get better. … I didn’t feel like there was any extra incentive to go out and win tonight. It was just, ‘Let’s play good and try to win the ballgame.’”
Ramage’s Outing
A veteran pitcher who played a key role on Arkansas’ back-to-back College World Series teams, Kole Ramage has been struggling so far in 2021, but got the starting nod Tuesday night.
After allowing three runs - two of which were earned - in four innings last week against Central Arkansas, the right-hander went out and put up four zeroes to start the game.
“He was spotting his fastball well, which he hasn’t done that a lot this year, and he had a really good curveball,” Van Horn said. “A pitch that’s usually good for him is his slider and he couldn’t command it. He did throw a few changeups, but overall I thought he did a good job.”
