HawgBeat Preview: Weather could be factor in midweek series vs. WIU
Before it begins conference play, Arkansas welcomes Western Illinois to Baum-Walker Stadium for a two-game midweek series. Here is a preview of those games…
Schedule (TV)
Tuesday, March 12 - 6:30 p.m. CT (SECN+)
Wednesday, March 13 - 3 p.m. CT (SECN+)
Both games will be streamed on SEC Network-plus, meaning it can be watches online on ESPN3.com or on the WatchESPN app.
Weather Report
Thunderstorms are hitting Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday morning and should let up in the afternoon, but the chance of rain increases again around the time Arkansas and Western Illinois are scheduled to begin Game 1.
According to the Weather Channel, there is a 60 percent chance of showers at 6:30 p.m., with temperatures in the mid-50s and 10-12 mph winds out of the south-southeast.
Wednesday afternoon looks much more encouraging. There is a 100 percent chance of rain at noon, but that drops all the way down to 25 percent at first pitch (3 p.m.). Although there will be 16-17 mph winds out of the south, it is expected to be sunny beginning at 4 p.m.
Arkansas’ Starting Pitchers (season stats)
Tuesday - Fr. LHP Patrick Wicklander (6 games/2 starts, 1-1, 3.38 ERA, 21 K/8 BB, 13 1/3 IP)
Wednesday - TBA
The Razorbacks planned to use Wicklander for an inning or two Sunday, but didn’t need to because they got up big. That allows him to start Tuesday’s game.
Head coach Dave Van Horn said he probably won’t go too long, though, because they’d like to have him available for this weekend’s SEC-opening series against Missouri.
Who will start for Arkansas on Wednesday is still up the air, but Van Horn did mentioned freshman Elijah Trest - who debuted Sunday - as a possibility. He likely wouldn’t throw more than a couple of innings before turning it over to a bunch of other young pitchers.
“Wednesday will definitely be a bullpen-type game,” Van Horn said. “Whoever starts, I would tell you they probably wouldn’t go more than two innings. It would probably be like 1-1-2-1-1 (innings after that), mostly younger guys.”
In the Polls
Arkansas is ranked as high as No. 10 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and is a top-15 team in most of the other rankings. It is tied for No. 13 in the HawgBeat Composite Poll, which combines the major college baseball top-25 lists. Western Illinois is not ranked.
Scouting the Opponent
Western Illinois’ starting pitchers (season stats)
Tuesday - R-So. LHP Alex Dorethy (4 games/3 starts, 0-2, 9.28 ERA, 10 K/10 BB, 10 2/3 IP)
Wednesday - So. RHP Justin Foy (4 games/4 starts, 0-2, 6.91 ERA, 15 K/18 BB, 14 1/3 IP)
Coming off a season in which it finished 14 games under .500, Western Illinois was picked to finish fourth in the six-team Summit League, which is dominated by Oral Roberts.
The Fighting Leathernecks - a nickname derived from the U.S. Marine Corps - are off to a 4-8 start with all 12 games played away from home. They have been swept by Tennessee Tech and Southern Illinois, but took series against Southeast Missouri State and St. Louis.
Van Horn said he has known seventh-year head coach Ryan Brownlee “for a long time.” In fact, Brownlee’s first win at Western Illinois came at Baum-Walker Stadium when his team salvaged a Sunday victory against the No. 1 Razorbacks in the opening series of 2013.
On the mound, Arkansas will face a pair of pitchers that teams don’t hit very well, but still put a lot of guys on base because they’re wild. Opponents are hitting just .216 against Dorethy and .259 against Foy, but the pair has combined for 28 walks, seven hit by pitches and seven wild pitches in 25 innings. It’s also worth noting that of the 14 hits Foy has allowed, six have been for extra bases - including three home runs.
Although Dorethy’s numbers aren’t very good, he was a pretty good pitcher as a redshirt freshman, posting a 3.38 ERA in 16 innings. He also earned second-team all-conference honors as a designated hitter, batting .299 with four home runs and 27 RBIs.
The best pitcher on the Leathernecks’ staff might be their closer, sophomore Jace Warkentien. He has a team-best 2.04 ERA and 1.10 WHIP with three saves, 18 strikeouts and only four walks in 17 2/3 innings across six appearances.
Western Illinois has struggled mightily at the plate so far this season, as only four Division I teams have a worse batting average that it’s .184 through four weeks.
Senior third baseman Nolan Ard leads the team with a .250 batting average, but much like Arkansas, its studs have gotten off to a slow start.
Two years removed from earning Freshman All-America honors from Collegiate Baseball, redshirt junior center fielder Drue Galassi is hitting just .237, but leads the team with two home runs and seven RBIs.
A name Arkansas fans might remember is Steve McShane, the Leathernecks’ senior left fielder who hit .318 and earned first-team all-conference honors last season. He is a two-sport standout who also earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honors as a running back.
When the two teams met back in 2016, McShane - then a freshman - showed off his football skills by plowing through Arkansas first baseman Cullen Gassaway on the base path after laying down a bunt. He is off to an abysmal start in 2019, though, going just 6 for 39 (.154) with 14 strikeouts.
McFarland to Play?
While freshman Trey Harris has seemingly established himself as Arkansas’ top designated hitter and sophomore Matt Goodheart showed signs of life with an RBI single Sunday, Van Horn said he might try to jump start junior Jordan McFarland.
The slumping slugger last played against Charlotte as a defensive replacement at first base and grounded out in his lone at bat with a runner in scoring position. He is hitting .188 with seven strikeouts in 16 at bats.
There is a chance he could eventually play some first base for Trevor Ezell, but he’ll be limited to designated hitter duty until he turns it around at the plate.
“If it goes good, then I feel like I could maybe put him in at first, give Trevor a day off or DH him, just to get (McFarland) some time in the field,” Van Horn said. “But until I start seeing a little more consistency at the plate, I feel like I can only DH him because it’s easier to replace him with a pinch-hitter and it doesn’t upset our players in the field.”
Burton’s Suspension
Fans will likely get another look at several freshman pitchers during the midweek series, but one they won’t see if right-hander Jacob Burton. He is still serving a mandatory four-game suspension after being ejected from Saturday’s game for hitting a batter in the helmet with a pitch.
Van Horn was adamant following the game and again Monday afternoon at the Swatter’s Club meeting that it was not an intentional beaning, but he could not appeal the suspension.
“I made a call or two yesterday, but there’s nothing I can do because it’s umpire judgement,” Van Horn said. “He doesn’t know the two coaches are friends, there was no chirping at all between the two teams. It was just a game.”
When home plate umpire Wes Hamilton immediately tossed Burton, a few Louisiana Tech players came out of the dugout and it looked like the situation might escalate. However, Van Horn quickly ran out on the field, checked on the batter and let Louisiana Tech head coach Lane Burroughs - one of his former assistants - know it wasn’t intentional, so cooler heads prevailed.
There were no warnings and there wasn’t any tension between the teams before the ejection, which seemed to upset Van Horn the most. During his talk to the crowd, he referred to Hamilton as a “former professional minor league umpire” with an emphasis on “minor league,” making it a derogatory remark, but showed some restraint when speaking with the media afterward.
“It got a little nuts because I felt like the way he active, he acted like there was a problem,” Van Horn said. “There wasn’t a problem. … I think he incited it a little bit.”
Stat of the Midweek
Over the last two weeks, Arkansas pitchers have been racking up strikeouts at an impressive rate while also keeping their walks at a minimum.
Going into the midweek game against Memphis, the Razorbacks were averaging just 9.1 strikeouts per nine innings, which ranked 120th. They also had a solid strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.44, which was 27th nationally.
In the eight games since then, they have 104 strikeouts and only 25 walks in 72 innings. That is an average of 13 strikeouts per nine innings and 4.16 strikeouts per walk. As you can see below, Arkansas now ranks seventh (11.3) and ninth (3.88), respectively, in those two categories.
Stat Comparison - Arkansas | Western Illinois (national rank, out of 297 teams)
Batting average: .303 (22nd) | .184 (293rd)
Slugging percentage: .479 (19th) | .258 (287th)
On-base percentage: .401 (36th) | .285 (280th)
Home runs: 15 (t-35th) | 3 (t-246th)
Runs/game: 7.9 (27th) | 3.2 (t-273rd)
ERA: 3.27 (44th) | 6.00 (t-222nd)
WHIP: 1.14 (17th) | 1.75 (240th)
Strikeouts/9 innings: 11.3 (7th) | 8.9 (116th)
Strikeout-to-walk ratio: 3.88 (9th) | 1.31 (257th)
Fielding percentage: .971 (103rd) | .964 (179th)
Stolen bases/game: 2.07 (t-26th) | 1.67 (t-56th)
Preview Video
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