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FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas was back home, but Tuesday’s result felt eerily similar to its trip to Houston last weekend.
After falling behind early and battling back to give themselves a chance, the Razorbacks couldn’t finish it off and lost to Illinois State 8-7 at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The loss gives Arkansas a four-game losing streak, matching last year’s stretch that included two losses to Ole Miss and one each to UALR and Auburn for its longest since ending the 2016 season with 13 straight.
Making this streak particularly painful is that the Razorbacks had the tying run either at the plate or in scoring position in the ninth inning of all four and the last three have been by one run. It’s the first time they’ve dropped that many one-run games in a row since losing four in a row in 2014.
“We’re out-hitting the other team, but we’re leaving too many runners in scoring position,” shortstop Casey Martin said. “Honestly, the lineup’s not clicking. We’re off to a slow start and we need to figure some things out.”
Arkansas (7-4) will get another chance to snap its losing streak this weekend when it hosts South Alabama for a three-game series. Game 1 is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday, followed by 2 p.m. and noon starts on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
All three of those games will be streamed on SEC Network-Plus, meaning they can be watched online on ESPN3.com or on the WatchESPN app.
More Wasted Opportunities
Having already overcome a 3-0 deficit to take the lead, Arkansas once again found itself in a hole late in Tuesday’s game.
It had a great opportunity to at least tie it up in the half inning immediately after the Redbirds went up 6-4, as Heston Kjerstad, Matt Goodheart and Christian Franklin hit three straight singles to start the seventh.
The last of those gave Franklin an RBI to pull the Razorbacks within one and put the tying run in scoring position, but that’s where he was stranded.
Casey Martin, who had broken out of his recent slump with hits in his first three at bats of the game, was asked to lay down a sacrifice bunt and failed to do so. After fouling off a couple of bunts, he swung and missed at an off speed pitch for strike three.
Head coach Dave Van Horn said the decision to bunt with Martin was “pretty easy.”
“We’re facing a guy that’s throwing a bunch of stuff at us, a slow breaking ball, and trying to get the tying run and the lead run in scoring position with one out,” Van Horn said. “Let them make the decision if they want to walk the next man to set up the double play, but unfortunately we didn’t get to do that to put the pressure on them.”
Instead, that seemed to take the wind out of Arkansas’ sails that inning and Illinois State reliever Derek Salata struck out Casey Opitz in a nine-pitch at bat and got Jacob Nesbit to ground out softly to end the threat.
Playing with a three-run deficit in the eighth inning, the Razorbacks got back-to-back one-out singles by Braydon Webb and Robert Moore, only to strand them when Kjerstad popped out to third and Goodheart grounded out.
They got another couple of hits - from Franklin and Martin - to start the ninth inning. They actually scored, with the first coming on an RBI double by Nesbit and the second coming on a wild pitch, but the tying run was stranded 90 feet away when Webb looked at strike three to end the game.
With the game hanging in the balance, Illinois State turned to Colton Johnson - its ace who entered with a 2.84 ERA and 28 strikeouts in 19 innings - to finish it off. Aside from the Nesbit double and wild pitch, he did just that with three strikeouts.
“They brought in their Friday night starter to close the game,” Van Horn said. “That’s their starter on three days rest. Obviously it was hugely important for them to finish that game out and they brought Johnson in.”
Although they posted a respectable .300 batting average with runners in scoring position Tuesday, which was much higher than their .125 (4 for 32) at the Shriners College Classic over the weekend, it still felt like the Razorbacks left too many opportunities out there.
That’s because they had a whopping 20 at bats in those situations and came up with hits just six times. Even when it scored a pair of runs in the fourth and fifth innings to take the lead, Arkansas could have put more runs on the board - stranding runners on the corners and runners on first and second, respectively.
For the entire game, the Razorbacks left 12 runners on base, with half of them stranded in scoring position.
“Today we drove in some runs,” Van Horn said. “We set up some innings. We should have scored more. We left too many on.”
Casey at the Bat (and in the Field)
The most encouraging aspect of the loss was how well Martin played in his first game back in the lineup after being benched against Baylor.
The preseason All-American was just 6 for 34 (.182) in the first nine games of the season, but went 4 for 5 with a double and three RBIs on Tuesday. He also stole a base and used his speed to bunt his way on for one of his hits.
