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Arkansas hits the road for another SEC series this weekend. Here's everything you need to know ahead of the three games at Texas A&M...

Friday, April 22 — 7:30 p.m. (SEC Network)

Saturday, April 23 — 2 p.m. (SECN+)

Sunday, April 24 — 1 p.m. (SECN+)

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Arkansas is coming off a weekend in which its pitching staff dominated LSU, leading to a sweep of the Tigers.

Noland carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning, but the Tigers were able to string together four singles in a row to put three runs on the ace’s tab. A strong performance from the bullpen and late-game run support from the offense prevented him from being charged with his second loss of 2022.

Smith had the best outing of the weekend — and his career — to earn SEC Freshman of the Week honors. He allowed only two hits and one walk while striking out seven in seven scoreless innings. He benefitted from LSU’s ineptitude against southpaws, as its batting average against left-handed pitchers is the worst in the SEC.

Wiggins was hit around by the Tigers, allowing nine base knocks, but he remained poised with runners on base and tied a career high with nine strikeouts while allowing only two of his 12 baserunners to cross home.

The Razorbacks’ starters consistently pop up all over the conference leaderboards for individual statistics, but the pitching staff as a whole ranks in the top three for nearly every category.

The Aggies, on the other hand, hover toward the middle of the pack in most of the overall SEC figures, although they have fared better during conference play.

Noland’s adversary in the series opener will be Nathan Dettmer, who is the bonafide ace of the Texas A&M staff. This is his second season in maroon and white, notching a 3-2 record with 49 strikeouts and 32 free passes in 12 starts and 17 total appearances last year.

Hurling from a 6-foot-4, 215-pound frame, Dettmer comes over the top with his delivery to create angle on a four-seam fastball and sink with arm-side run on a two-seamer. The heaters tunnel well with his curveball, which is an 11-5 breaker he’ll go to for strikeouts. He also possesses a changeup, but it’s not used as frequently as the other three offerings.

Friday’s series-opening start will see him fresh off the best outing of his career when he tossed eight innings and allowed one unearned run on five hits and no walks with nine strikeouts against Georgia. That performance was good enough to earn him SEC Pitcher of the Week honors.

Similar to the rest of his team, Dettmer has actually improved since conference play began. In five SEC starts, he hasn’t allowed more than three earned runs or six hits and has walked more than two batters only once. Although he usually turns in a solid outing, the Aggies are barely above .500 when he starts, winning five games in his nine appearances.

After starting Game 3 of Texas A&M’s last two series, Micah Dallas has moved into the Game 2 slot this weekend. The change makes sense considering the Aggies played Thursday-Saturday series the last two weeks, so Dallas will still be pitching on Saturday.

Dallas has the most experience of the starting trio, spending the first three years of his collegiate career with Texas Tech. While he’s had success this season, it’s been statistically his worst by a small margin. In 41 career outings and 23 starts, he held a 3.46 ERA and a 186/49 K/BB ratio in 158 1/3 innings. This season, however, his ERA exceeds his career average by more than a run, even though his strikeout and walk rates are somewhat consistent with previous numbers.

He possesses a similar repertoire to Dettmer, utilizing a low 90’s fastball with arm-side run along with a downer curveball and solid changeup.

Game 3’s starter is up in the air, but it is likely to be the right-handed Chris Cortez.

His first career start came in Game 2 of the Aggies’ previous series against the Bulldogs. In that outing, he completed two innings while allowing three runs on six hits and a walk while striking out only one.

Cortez has only gone over 2 2/3 innings in an outing once, which was on April 8 against Kentucky. In that outing, he tossed 4 2/3 frames of scoreless ball and struck out a career-high six batters on 74 pitches — also a career high.

Texas A&M’s other option is young southpaw Ryan Prager.

He was the starter in the Aggies’ 14-1 run-rule midweek victory over a ranked Dallas Baptist club, going 3 2/3 and allowing the only run to the Patriots while striking out four hitters to one walk and three hits.

Tuesday was his first appearance out of the bullpen in his career, as he was the Game 3 starter most weekends up until the Georgia series when Cortez was handed the ball.

Prager seems like the better matchup against the Razorbacks, who are the third-worst team in the SEC against lefties with a .262 batting average, but he’s performed much worse in conference play, posting a 10.93 ERA in five SEC starts and never lasting longer than 4 1/3 innings.

The key to the weekend for Arkansas will be running Texas A&M’s starters from the game early and getting into its bullpen. Brad Rudis and Jacob Palisch are their most proven options as relievers.

The left-handed Palisch could see a good chunk of innings out of the pen in an attempt to exploit the Razorbacks’ ineffectiveness against left-handed pitching. Lefties Will Johnston and Joseph Menefee are two other options for the Aggies in that respect.

(NOTE: Taylor Smith and Trevor Werner could make starts for Texas A&M. Their slash lines are .177/.321/.258 and .412/.500/.765, respectively.)

2022 Record: 23-13 (8-7 SEC)
Head Coach: Jim Schlossnagle (1st season, 811-393 career record)
Conference Standings: t-2nd in SEC West, t-4th in SEC overall

~The Aggies are coming off an uncharacteristically bad season by their standards, going 29-27 overall and 9-21 in SEC play. They were completely left out of the postseason, not making an appearance in Hoover for the conference tournament and not receiving an invite to a regional for the NCAA Tournament, leading to the dismissal of long-time coach Rob Childress.

~Prior to arriving in College Station, Schlossnagle spent the previous 18 seasons at TCU. During his time in Fort Worth, Texas, the Horned Frogs made it to the College World Series five times, including a stretch from 2014-17 where they had four trips to Omaha in a row. Prior to his tenure, TCU had made just two NCAA Tournament appearances. Under Schlossnagle, however, it reached the postseason in 15 of 18 tries, leading to him becoming the winningest coach in program history.

~Including their time as Southwest Conference rivals and non-conference foes, Arkansas leads the all-time series 45-44 — that includes a 16-9 edge since Texas A&M joined the SEC.

~Texas A&M’s offense has been its strength in 2022, especially in conference play. Through 15 SEC games, the Aggies lead the conference in seven major categories (batting average, on base percentage, hits, doubles, plate appearances, at bats and walks). They’re also second in slugging percentage, runs scored, runs batted in, triples, total bases and sacrifice flies. The Arkansas pitching staff took care of business against the talented LSU offense, but they won’t have home field advantage this weekend.

~After spending four years at UTSA, super senior Dylan Rock has become the biggest individual threat in the Aggies’ lineup. Riding a 27-game on-base streak into the matchup with the Hogs, he picked up SEC co-Offensive Player of the Week honors in their series against Kentucky. Not only is his 1.144 OPS highest on the team by 0.168 — among players with at least 20 at bats — but he is also the only player on the roster with double digits in the stolen base column. Primarily playing left field, he is yet to make an error in 51 chances.

~The Aggies are very aggressive on the base paths. They have attempted to steal 64 bases — second-most in the conference — but have been caught 20 times, which is also the most in the SEC. Their 44 successfully swiped bags are good for fifth among conference foes despite having the fourth-worst success rate at 68.75%. Arkansas, on the other hand, has stolen a base on 38 of 41 attempts. That 92.68% success rate is best in the SEC.

~Texas A&M’s defense is in the bottom tier of the SEC. Its .973 fielding percentage is 11th, 37 errors are third-most, 15 double plays completed are 12th and 10 passed balls are tied with the Hogs for second-most. The Aggies have had 10 multi-error games in 2022. In those instances, they have come away with a 4-6 record.

~Opponents haven’t been aggressive on the base paths against the Aggies so far this season, as their 22 steal attempts against is second fewest in the SEC, but they allow 73% of runners to successfully steal, which is sixth best. The Hogs are tied for second best in that department, only allowing 65% of runners to successfully swipe bags.

~Although the Savannah Bananas are more notable in 2022 for spreading the sport of Banana Ball after it was created by their owner Jesse Cole, they are also a successful club in the Coastal Plain League — a wood-bat summer collegiate league. Last summer, Nathan Dettmer was a huge part in their championship season, pitching his way to a 6-0 record with a 1.63 ERA and a 24/7 K/BB ratio in 27 2/3 innings, even while wearing a yellow kilt in one of his outings.

~Both of these foes have seen one of their players hit for the cycle in 2022. Arkansas’ came by courtesy of sophomore Dylan Leach, who went 5 for 5 with two homers — one from each side of the plate — against Central Arkansas on April 5. Texas A&M’s cycle was completed by sophomore Ryan Targac four days later on April 9 against Kentucky. In that game, the infielder went 4 for 5 with five RBIs. Targac also stole four of his five bases on the year in one game against LSU on March 19.

“I’m looking for us to go out and play solid baseball. It’s going to be completely different weather than we’ve been playing in. It’s going to be really warm, upper-80s, 90 degrees, windy. We’ve been playing in wind, but mostly been blowing in, at least at home. I think it’s probably going to blow out one way or another down there. Usually when it’s warm in College Station and the wind’s out of anywhere but the north, it’s going to blow out at their ballpark.” — Dave Van Horn, on playing in College Station

“I’ve been keeping up with, obviously, the teams that are coming down the road for us as far as games, so I’ve been watching A&M and they’ve been playing really well, swinging the bats, pithing well. I think their Friday guy was the Pitcher of the Week last week and they’re scoring a lot of runs. I know they scored 13 against Dallas Baptist last night and they’re no push over. DBU is a good program. So they’re scoring and they’re confident. It’s going to be a major challenge for us.” — Dave Van Horn, on Texas A&M

“Really good coaching staff. I mean, they’ve got… LSU’s hitting coach is there from the past. They’ve got Oregon State’s pitching coach who was at Arizona. Schloss has been at TCU, did a great job there. He did a great job at Tulane. I mean, wherever he’s been, they’ve done well. So they definitely will have those guys ready. They seem… What I’ve seen is they’re playing their best baseball right now.” — Dave Van Horn, on Texas A&M coaching staff

“Well, I’m confident in our starters because they’ve gone out every weekend and given us an opportunity to get into the game. What do I mean by that? Five, six innings usually. That does save your bullpen a little bit. But they’ve been consistent, throw strikes, compete. And then the guys that we bring out of the pen, they kind of know their roles now a little bit. As a coach, you always need one more pitcher, you always need one more hitter, but the guys that we’ve put out there have done well on the weekends.” — Dave Van Horn, on Arkansas pitching staff

“I mean, of course they’re hot right now. If we play like we know we can, it’ll be a good series, and hopefully we’ll come out on top” — Jalen Battles, on Texas A&M

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