Moore, Kopps deliver in series-opening win at South Carolina

As it has all year, Arkansas did its damage in the late innings to pick up a series-opening victory at South Carolina on Thursday.

Robert Moore hit a two-run home run to break a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning and Kevin Kopps slammed the door with three perfect innings to help the Razorbacks to a 6-1 win over the No. 10 Gamecocks at Founders Park.

It improves No. 1 Arkansas to 31-6 overall and 12-4 in conference play, plus puts it in good position to win yet another road series over a ranked opponent ahead of Friday’s doubleheader.

“It takes a little bit of pressure off of you,” Van Horn said about winning Game 1. “You can sleep a little better and know that you can go out the next day, if you get one of those games, you win the series.”

The go-ahead hit in the seventh was actually Moore’s second long ball of the game.

South Carolina starter Thomas Farr retired the first five Razorbacks in order before facing Moore with two outs in the second inning. Hitting from the left side, the switch-hitting second baseman turned on the first pitch he saw for a solo home run.

Moore said he was hunting a first-pitch fastball because that’s what the scouting report said Farr has liked to do against left-handed hitters, especially in SEC play.

“I was hitting sixth tonight, so I got to see (Zack) Gregory, (Matt) Goodheart and (Brady) Slavens hit, and that's what they were doing to them,” Moore said. “So I just tried to get a pitch, a fastball, and try to take it L-screen, right back up the middle. He missed middle-in and my hands just reacted."

The Gamecocks managed to tie it up on an RBI double by Colin Burgess in the fourth inning and by that time, Farr was cruising. The right-handed ace was in the midst of retiring 11 batters in a row.

However, with his pitch count in the 80s, Farr ran into some trouble in the seventh. Christian Franklin led off with a single and Moore followed with a monster two-run shot.

An 0-2 fastball caught too much of the plate and Moore made him pay by hitting it nearly completely out of the ballpark, as it bounced and hit the fence beyond the right field wall on one bounce.

“It looked like they tried to get him to chase an elevated fastball and (Farr) threw it too low, and he crushed it,” Van Horn said. “He hit it harder than the first one, by a lot. That really got our team fired up.”

By hitting a pair Thursday night, Moore now has 10 home runs, which is tied with Slavens for second on the team and one behind Goodheart for the team lead.

The Razorbacks weren’t done in the seventh inning, though. Casey Opitz reached on an error, moved to second on a wild pitch and then took third on another South Carolina error. That set the stage for an RBI bunt single by Zack Gregory that made it 4-1.

“It was a great job,” Van Horn said. “He couldn’t have bunted it any better. He couldn’t have rolled it any better, to be honest with you.”

Farr eventually got out of the inning, but the damage was done. Although the last of those runs was unearned because of the errors, he was still charged with three earned runs on five hits and two walks.

“Watching a lot of video of him and discussing things with the team - Coach (Nate) Thompson did for the most part - is that there was usually one inning you could get him,” Van Horn said. “That’s kind of what happened tonight. We finally got him in the seventh.”

Arkansas tacked on insurance runs in the eighth and ninth innings on RBI singles by Franklin and Slavens, respectively, and that was more than enough to seal the victory.

Perfection from Kopps

As it turned out, the Razorbacks really needed only a one-run lead because Kopps was back to his typical dominant self Thursday night.

After not being quite as sharp as usual and giving up a game-tying home run in his four-inning outing last weekend against Texas A&M, the right-hander went nine up, nine down against South Carolina.

“I don’t know it was his best stuff, but if if it’s not, it was real good,” Van Horn said. “I like the fact he didn’t mess around. He threw a lot of strikes.”

Called upon after Arkansas took the lead in the top of the seventh, Kopps immediately erased virtually any hope of a comeback for the Gamecocks.

He struck out George Callil and Jeff Heinrich on three pitches apiece and got ahead of Brady Allen 0-2 before he grounded out to the shortstop, narrowly missing out on a rare immaculate inning.