Key takeaways, box score from Arkansas' Game 2 loss at Alabama

Arkansas couldn’t overcome a fifth-inning meltdown and Alabama set up a rubber match by evening the series Friday night.

All nine Crimson Tide starters reached base and six came around to score in the fateful inning, erasing an early three-run deficit and handing the Razorbacks an 8-6 loss at Thomas-Sewell Stadium.

Unlike recent games, when it found itself having to dig out of holes, Arkansas actually jumped out to an early lead Friday. It was still 4-1 in favor of the Razorbacks when Connor Noland took the mound in the bottom of the fifth.

By the time he walked off the field, the lead had dwindled to one, as Andrew Pinckney drove in Caden Rose — who reached on a leadoff walk — with an RBI fielder’s choice and Dominic Tamez hit an RBI single to pull the Crimson Tide within 4-3.

The hit by Tamez, a former Arkansas catcher, chased Noland and prompted Van Horn to bring in Zack Morris, who has emerged as one of the team’s top relievers. To say it didn’t go well for the left-hander would be an understatement.

His third pitch sailed to the backstop for a wild pitch and he ended up walking Zane Denton to load the bases. It only got worse from there.

Tommy Seidl tied it up with a bloop RBI single that a diving Chris Lanzilli couldn’t quite catch and then Owen Diodati gave Alabama the lead with a two-run single. With runners on the corners, Jim Jarvis laid down a squeeze bunt and Seidl slid in just ahead of the tag to tack on another run.

“Connor wasn’t throwing strikes, getting behind in the count, giving up some hits, so we decided to go with Morris,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “Morris came in and didn’t throw the ball over the plate very well.”

When the dust settled, the Crimson Tide had scored six runs — the most Arkansas has allowed in a single inning since also giving up six in the fourth against UIC on March 13.

Zebulon Vermillion eventually got the Razorbacks out of the fifth, coming in and retiring the first two batters he faced, but he gave up a first-pitch bomb to Pinckney to start the sixth. The home run made it 8-4 and was the Crimson Tide’s lone extra-base hit of the day and their first 10 were all singles.

“I’m looking at my box score here and I think everybody, well, at least seven of my nine players got hits, even some guys we hadn’t got a lot out of,” Alabama head coach Brad Bohannon said. “That’s what it takes to put up some crooked numbers.

“You either have to hit a couple of home runs with people on baser get a lot of production up and down the line up. That is what we did tonight.”

Arkansas managed to cut its deficit in half with a two-out, two-run double by Chris Lanzilli in the seventh, but — despite having six at bats with the tying run either on base or at the plate — couldn’t get any closer than that the rest of the way.

Singles by Cayden Wallace and Robert Moore made things interesting in the ninth and even forced Alabama to bring in closer Dylan Ray.

The hard-throwing right-hander struck out Lanzilli to earn his sixth save of the season and first in nearly a month, with his last coming back on April 24 against Georgia.

“It’s hard to overcome a big number like six runs in an inning to somebody and we almost did it,” Van Horn said. “We fought a little bit there, got a couple of big hits. We had a couple of big hits in the seventh, had a couple of runners on there in the ninth and a hot hitter in Lanzilli up there, so I was proud of them for fighting.”

Here are several other key takeaways from Friday’s loss…

More Struggles for Noland

Moved to Game 2 in order to preserve his normal rest, Noland struggled in yet another start for the Razorbacks.

The senior retired the first seven batters he faced and got out of a bases-loaded jam in the third, but the next 11 Alabama hitters — in the fourth and fifth innings — managed six hits and a walk against him.

Including a couple of runs he was responsible for after Tamez chased him with one out in the fifth, Noland was charged with five earned runs on eight hits and two walks while striking out four in 4 1/3 innings.