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FAYETTEVILLE — Matt Goodheart didn’t even have to watch the ball.
As soon as he made contact in the sixth inning, he knew he had his third home run of the season. The two-run bomb, which appeared to sail over the new facility beyond right field, was part of Goodheart’s four-hit performance in Arkansas’ 9-4 win over Memphis on Wednesday.
It was a welcome sight for the Razorbacks, as the preseason first-team All-SEC selection has gotten off to a pretty slow start. He came into the game hitting just .233, but raised his average 59 points to .292 by the end of it.
“Just tried to get in the groove,” Goodheart said. “Baseball is one of those games where you just do anything to stay in a rhythm. I won’t necessarily say I’ve been in a great rhythm, but at the same time I wouldn’t say I’ve been struggling either. Just kind of in a lull. Hopefully today kick-started a streak.”
When Goodheart came to the plate in the sixth, Arkansas was clinging to a one-run lead and Braydon Webb had just drawn a leadoff walk.
The Razorbacks needed some insurance runs to distance themselves from a pesky Tigers team and he provided just that when he crushed the first pitch he saw from Reed Harding. Goodheart said he was looking for an off-speed pitch, but jumped on a fastball instead.
That swing proved to be just enough for Arkansas, as Memphis ended up scoring another run in the seventh, but the biggest hit of the day likely came earlier in the game.
Memphis jumped out to a 2-0 lead without the benefit of a hit, getting a sacrifice fly in the first and third innings, before the Razorbacks answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the third.
“I know when they got that second run, made it 2-0, then we came up and scored three, that really changed the momentum,” Van Horn said. “It looked like they were kind of chipping away. We hadn’t gotten any really big hits yet.”
Making his second career start, Ethan Bates finally delivered that big hit. After looking at two strikes to fall behind 0-2, he hit a single through the right side that drove in two runs to tie the game.
It was the first of two hits for the freshman out of Hot Springs Lakeside, who went 2 for 5 and was robbed of a potential bases-clearing double by a great play by the right fielder late in the game. The performance earned Bates a shoutout from his coach during his postgame talk with the team.
“He hadn’t played a whole lot (and) just keeps working, impresses us in batting practice and works hard in practice trying to get in the game,” Van Horn said. “It was just good to see him come in there and compete and not really look rusty. … He was out there trying to earn a spot.”
Bates’ hit chased Memphis starter Logan Walters from the game and Zack Gregory followed it with a go-ahead sacrifice fly off reliever Jackson Cothren.
The lead didn’t last long, though, as the Tigers tied it up again on an RBI single by Braden Webb in the fourth. In what became a theme throughout the game, Arkansas responded in the very next half inning by putting together a two-out rally and scoring on a wild pitch to regain a lead it wouldn’t lose again.
Even when Memphis homered in the seventh inning, the Razorbacks scored another run after the stretch to push their lead back to four.
“Every time the other team scores, you want to try to get that momentum back on your side,” Van Horn said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of that so far this year. We’ve got a pretty good lineup up and down so it really doesn’t matter what inning it is. Whoever’s coming up, we’ve got a chance to score.”
Gregory punctuated the victory with a leadoff home run in the eighth inning, creating the final 9-4 margin. The win completed a two-game sweep of the Tigers in Arkansas’ first multi-game midweek series of the season.
“A lot of times when you have a couple of games like this pinched in-between two conference series, it can get a little bit crazy,” Van Horn said. “Credit our guys for showing up both days, playing hard and doing a nice job of finding a way to put together some good innings.”
