FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas will be without one of its most experienced pitchers in 2019.

Right-hander Caleb Bolden, who started four games as a true freshman last season, had Tommy John surgery following fall practice and will miss all of the upcoming season, head coach Dave Van Horn announced Thursday.

The sophomore from Texarkana, Texas, had been struggling because of some irritation and eventually had doctors check it out.

“He was throwing a bullpen and basically walked off and said, ‘My elbow hurts,’” Van Horn said. “We got it looked at and he had Tommy John surgery a couple weeks later.”

Once they did the surgery, doctors found scar tissue and could tell he had been hurt for a while before completely tearing the ligament in his elbow.

That diagnosis made Bolden’s performance in 2018 make more sense. In the first half of the season, Van Horn thought they were preparing him to be a weekend starter as a sophomore, but that changed as the year progressed.

Across his first six appearances with the Razorbacks, Bolden was 3-0 with a 2.61 ERA, 15 strikeouts, eight walks and 19 hits allowed in 20 2/3 innings. That included 13 scoreless innings in midweek starts against Dayton and ULM and three scoreless innings out of the bullpen against Texas.

In his last four appearances, including midweek starts against Grambling State and Missouri State, he posted a 9.00 ERA with 10 strikeouts, five walks and 14 hits allowed in eight innings.

“His outings weren’t real good for him about midseason on,” Van Horn said. “His velocity went backwards (and) his breaking ball kind of disappeared, which he had a good one, so it kind of tells you what happened - he got hurt last year.”

Van Horn said Bolden is expected to make a full recovery and be ready to go for the 2020 season, but his loss will be felt this year because he had the second most starts and fourth most innings among the returners on Arkansas’ pitching staff.

“In a perfect world, that kid comes in here and does what he did in the fall of his freshman year, early spring of his freshman year,” Van Horn said. “I would probably be telling you right now he’s one of our three starters, but we didn’t see that from the second half on.

“We were trying to figure out what we going on there. Basically we know now.”