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For the second straight day, a seventh-inning implosion was the difference at Taylor Stadium in Columbia, Mo.
This time, Arkansas was the beneficiary of several Missouri mistakes that led to a four-run outburst and the Razorbacks hung on for a 6-4 win in Sunday’s rubber match.
It is the 12th straight SEC series Arkansas has won and improves it to 18-4 overall and 5-1 in conference play. The Tigers, meanwhile, fall to 13-7 with a 1-4 SEC mark.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of series, that’s for sure,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “I’ve seen a lot prettier, but I’ll take two out of three any time on the road up here.
“I think we’re just disappointed that we didn’t play very well last night, kind of let it slip. The guys fought back today, had a good attitude.”
Having scored a couple of runs in the fourth inning to tie it up, it was still tied 2-2 when Arkansas came to the plate in the seventh. That’s when things unraveled on Missouri.
After throwing a scoreless sixth inning, reliever Christian Wall walked Cayden Wallace to start the rally. It looked like the Tigers might be able to turn two when Peyton Stovall hit a ground ball to third, but second baseman Nander de Sedas was late covering the bag and Justin Colon’s throw sailed into right field.
That put runners on the corners for Michael Turner, who made weak contact and the ball didn’t get out of the infield “grass” — or green turf in the infield. First baseman Luke Mann charged it, nearly collided with the pitcher and threw to first, but de Sedas was once again too slow getting there and Turner beat it out for a go-ahead RBI single.
With the Tigers reeling, Van Horn asked Robert Moore to attempt a sacrifice bunt and he laid one down the first base line, but Mann didn’t field it cleanly, so everyone was safe to load the bases.
“Next thing you know we’ve got the bases loaded and no outs and it hasn’t left the infield yet,” Van Horn said. “They gave us some extra outs and we took advantage of it. Kind of what we did to them last night.”
At that point, Missouri brought in right-hander Austin Troesser, who had been in the weekend rotation the first first weeks of the season and had easily been the Tigers’ best pitcher. He had a 2.21 ERA and 0.98 WHIP while holding opponents to a minuscule .178 batting average.
He looked the part of an ace while striking out Chris Lanzilli and Kendall Diggs on six pitches, but during the latter of those two at bats, he was called for a balk. The call came after a lengthy deliberation amongst the umpires and put Arkansas up 4-2.
It also moved runners to second and third, setting the stage for Braydon Webb’s two-run double down the left field line that gave the Razorbacks a couple of big insurance runs.
“He smoked it down the line,” Van Horn said. “Webb obviously got the hit of the game. Picked up the team, picked up his teammates that didn’t get the runners in in front of him. That was a big swing we were looking for.”
That proved to be an even bigger swing for Arkansas than it originally seemed because Missouri staged a rally in the eighth inning. It managed to score a couple of runs to cut the deficit in half, but ultimately stranded the tying runs on base.
Here are some other key takeaways from Sunday’s rubber match victory…
Wiggins Gets Stronger
For the third straight game, Arkansas’ starting pitcher got off to a shaky start before settling in.
Sophomore Jaxon Wiggins needed 39 pitches to get through the first two innings and allowed a couple of runs in the second, when Mann got just enough of a 1-2 pitch for a two-run home run.
The ball landed on top of the wall in left field and bounced over to put the Tigers up 2-0. It came at the perfect time, as the conditions at the ballpark had just shifted.
“(The wind) kind of died down there in the second inning,” Van Horn said. “It was the craziest thing. Then we saw the flags blowing the other way and then their guy goes opposite-field home run.”
