Arkansas junior left-handed pitcher Hunter Hollan will have surgery to repair entrapment of the saphenous nerve located at the adductor canal in his left knee on Friday, sources close to the situation told HawgBeat.
The surgery will be held at Arkansas Children’s Northwest Hospital in Springdale. Hollan’s expected recovery time is three-to-five weeks and it isn’t expected to have an impact on the future of his pitching career.
Hollan has been dealing with the injury since February, specifically after the College Baseball Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. He’s been playing through numbness in his foot trying to push through the season, but it was truly a day-to-day situation, per a source close to the situation.
A junior college transfer from San Jacinto College, Hollan boasted an 8-2 record and 4.13 ERA for the Razorbacks in 2023. He started 15 games, gave up 37 earned runs on 82 hits, walked 29 and struck out 74 batters.
Razorback head coach Dave Van Horn mentioned back on May 1 at the final Swatter's Club meeting of the season that Hollan was dealing with "kind of a shin splint situation."
"Hunter's leg is bothering him," Van Horn said. "Get's a little more rest this week due to him pitching Thursday and then he wont pitch again until Friday. But I think we're going to get that squared away...Hopefully that'll work out. It's been bothering him a lot for a couple of weeks."
Sources told HawgBeat shortly after Van Horn said it was shin splints that the injury was actually an issue with the nerve in his left knee, and Hollan confirmed that with a small group of reporters following an 11-6 win over Mississippi State on May 7.
"It's a nerve in my knee that's caused from the bottom of my knee cap down to my ankle to just go numb," Hollan said. "I physically couldn't use it. Last week at A&M, it got to the point to where I was going to end up getting hurt just having to throw all arm. It was something that we needed to get taken care of and just stay off it as much as possible."
The next outing Hollan had after that quote was a complete game performance against South Carolina on May 14. The lefty out of Hallsville, Texas, pitched all nine innings against the Gamecocks and he gave up just one earned run on five hits while walking one and striking out 10.
Hollan appeared four more times after the South Carolina game, two of which came out of the bullpen — his first appearances as a reliever since he was a junior in high school.
The 6-foot-5, 200-pound lefty even threw 5 1/3 innings of two-run ball and struck out eight during a 5-4 win over LSU at the SEC Tournament. That marked the second game that Arkansas took down the talented Tigers, as Hollan also threw 5 1/3 innings and struck out seven during the 9-3 win over LSU on March 24.
Hollan is MLB Pipeline's No. 83 prospect for the 2023 MLB Draft, but he told 103.7 The Buzz on Tuesday that he hasn't made up his mind regarding his future.
