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FAYETTEVILLE — It’s still early, but Arkansas has received some good news about Peyton Pallette’s injury.
Speaking to the media Wednesday, head coach Dave Van Horn said the right-hander and projected starter in 2022 does not require Tommy John surgery as of now because they haven’t found a tear in his elbow.
“We finally got the results and he’s rehabbing and he’s going to start throwing in a couple of weeks if he goes pain free, which he’s pain free now,” Van Horn said. “We’re hoping, got our fingers crossed that he’s going to be okay.”
That is significant news for the Razorbacks, as Pallette has been mentioned by some experts as a potential first-round pick in next summer’s MLB Draft and Tommy John surgery would have wiped out his 2022 season.
As a sophomore this year, the Benton native was in and out of the weekend rotation and posted a 4.02 ERA with 67 strikeouts and 20 walks in 56 innings. All but four of his 15 appearances were starts and opponents hit just .237 against him.
Those numbers landed Pallette on the SEC’s All-Newcomer Team, which was created for the class of players who had their freshman year cut short because of the pandemic.
It also set the stage for him to potentially be the ace of Arkansas’ staff next season with Patrick Wicklander moving on to the professional ranks, but Van Horn isn’t quite ready to put those kind of expectations on his shoulders.
“We’re not holding our breath on that,” Van Horn said. “We’re just wanting to wait and see how this goes. We’re extremely happy on what’s gone on from the very first day he hurt himself ’til now because it didn’t look good.”
When Pallette had to come out of the game during a relief outing against Florida in the final series of the regular season, Van Horn admitted he didn’t have a good feeling about the injury.
However, an MRI didn’t reveal a tear. They followed that up by doing a scan with dye and, even after sending it to two different groups that specialize in that kind of thing, still no tear was found.
Those things aren’t always 100 percent accurate and Van Horn said there could still be a tear, but he sounded cautiously optimistic about Pallette’s prognosis. The goal right now is for him to get through the summer and into the fall with no pain.
Another candidate to be the Razorbacks’ ace next season is right-hander Jaxon Wiggins.
A highly touted recruit in last year’s group of incoming freshmen, the Oklahoma native will play with Team USA this summer and Van Horn likes that he’ll be around a lot of really good players, most of whom will be older than him.
“I think that’s a good start, so he can see all of that, be around that,” Van Horn said. “Hopefully that will help him see where he wants to get and speed him up a little bit.”
Although he ended the season with a 5.09 ERA, Wiggins flashed the potential that made him the No. 129 overall recruit in the Class of 2020, according to Perfect Game. Take out a disastrous blown save at Tennessee and his ERA drops to 3.91, plus he had 28 strikeouts in 23 innings.
Armed with a 98 mph fastball, Wiggins actually earned four saves early in the year - including against top-16 national seeds Louisiana Tech and Mississippi State on the road. He made four starts late in the year and will get every opportunity during the fall to earn a starting role in 2022, with Van Horn saying the key for him is to continue working on his secondary pitches.
