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For most of the season, starting pitching has received the bulk of the attention for Arkansas. It took time for the bullpen to develop, and some players have been coming on strong as of late.
Senior lefty Evan Taylor has emerged as the Razorbacks’ go-to guy out of the bullpen. It’s becoming a regular occurrence for him to throw twice in one weekend and head coach Dave Van Horn has not hesitated to trust Taylor in a big situation.
“If it doesn’t work out, we feel like we went to the right guy, because he’s shown us the ability to do that and he’s done it time after time,” Van Horn said. “I wouldn’t expect him to be perfect. He goes in there and competes hard and he makes the other team earn it for the most part and that’s what we love about him.”
Statistically, this has been Taylor’s best season of his Arkansas career. He is 3-0 with a 1.77 ERA, 24 strikeouts and four walks in 20 1/3 innings of work.
The individual success is nice for Taylor, especially considering he waited so long for it to happen, but he said he values team success over his own.
“I could have the best weekend ever, but if we lose, I’m still more mad probably than anybody else,” Taylor said on the Diamond Hawgs Podcast. “I try not to look into all that stuff about myself or how I did. I think that’s kind of a slippery slope. You fall into a trap. You start caring about yourself too much and things go the wrong way.”
Prior to this season, Taylor had never pitched more than seven innings in a season. He was consistently buried deep in the Arkansas bullpens of the past three seasons, and he never caught the break he needed.
Riding the bench is never an easy task, and nowadays it can be simple to decide to move on. Taylor made the decision to finish what he started at Arkansas and work toward a successful senior season.
“A lot of it was looking back and being realistic about what is going on,” Taylor said. “It’s easy to make excuses for yourself. But I guess sometime I looked myself in the mirror and was like, ‘Dude, you suck. You’ve got to get it together.’”
Already with 16 appearances, Taylor has nearly doubled his career outings, as he pitched just 17 total times over his first three seasons -- compiling a 7.36 ERA in 14 2/3 innings.
That might make his performance to this point surprising to the outside world, but Van Horn actually identified him as a breakout candidate back in the fall. That said, Taylor has still exceeded all expectations.
“I’d have to say that nobody could have projected that he was going to be this good,” Van Horn said. “It’s all evolved because he’s having success and now he’s got a lot of confidence.”
Arkansas has become a place for veteran arms to develop and showcase themselves late in their career — look no further than sixth-year senior Kevin Kopps in 2021.
Taylor is not having a Kopps-level season, but he is as valuable of an arm that the Hogs have, and becoming that key piece was not easy.
“I feel like I worked my butt off to get where I am,” Taylor said. “I would’ve liked to have thrown more early, but I probably wouldn’t change what happened. I feel like it’s made me a much better pitcher now than if I would’ve came out my freshman year and thrown as much as I have. I think I have a better understanding of who I am because of what’s happened.”
Taylor is no longer the younger pitcher that sits back and learns from the older guys. He has been at Arkansas since 2018, so he is now one of the veterans that has to be a role model.
“Now I’m the dude that gets the ball,” Taylor said. “I think it’s a little bit of a reality check. It’s not (just) fun to wear the uniform anymore. I’m here to win ball games, and I want to be a part of that. You kind of get thrown into the fire pit a little bit. You have a little bit of growing up to do I guess.”
As Arkansas finishes off the last stretch of SEC play and gears up for the postseason, Taylor will be leaned on heavily in high-leverage situations. As he said, he is no longer the younger guy that can sit back and watch the veterans in the tight games, he is the veteran.
There is still time to improve, and Taylor said there are still things he can be working on individually.
“I feel like I’ve been walking right-handed batters recently, that’s frustrating,” Taylor said. “I’d rather just get (a) guy out and keep my pitch count down so I can go three days a weekend.”
Taylor and the Hogs will get their shot at the Ole Miss Rebels this weekend in Fayetteville. The first game will start at 6:30 p.m. CT and will be broadcast on the SEC Network-Plus.
Saturday and Sunday’s games will be nationally televised on ESPN2 and ESPN, respectively.
