SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — If Tuesday night was an audition for a spot in the weekend rotation, Patrick Wicklander passed with flying colors.
The freshman left-hander threw two perfect innings, striking out five of six batters, to start Arkansas’ 8-2 win over Missouri State at Hammons Field.
Wicklander was effective with his fastball and threw a few good breaking balls, head coach Dave Van Horn said, and the Bears’ struggling lineup - which was hitting just .206 coming into the game - looked lost against him.
Leadoff man Logan Geha got solid contact to start the game, but third baseman Jacob Nesbit and first baseman Trevor Ezell combined to make a great play for the out. Then preseason All-American Drew Millas looked at strike three and the next four went down swinging, giving Wicklander five consecutive strikeouts.
“It’s a great confidence booster going into this weekend playing against Ole Miss,” Wicklander said. “Everything was working today. … There’s nothing much else I could really do.”
By getting him out of the game after just 26 pitches and also throwing Connor Noland out of the bullpen Tuesday night, Van Horn appears to be considering a change to the weekend rotation.
Noland rebounded from a disastrous start at Alabama in which he allowed three earned runs in 1 2/3 innings by retiring all three Bears he faced, although two of them his the ball hard, and Van Horn noticed that his velocity was up.
“I think he was throwing the ball harder tonight than he did on Saturday, and maybe the Saturday before,” Van Horn said. “Really hard to evaluate him too much on one inning, but it was just good to see him go out there and let it rip a little bit.”
It was the first relief appearance of Noland’s young career, while Wicklander has come out of the bullpen five times, which is the same number of starts he’s made.
Wicklander admitted that he’s more comfortable as a starter, but has a team-first attitude and said he would be willing to do either. The numbers, however, indicate he’s much better starting games, with a 2.84 ERA compared to a 10.13 ERA as a reliever.
“We’re still not sure who we’re going to start on Saturday,” Van Horn said. “It’ll probably be one of those two guys. We’ll make that decision in the next couple of days”
The No. 2 starter is still up in the air, but Arkansas will send its ace, right-hander Isaiah Campbell, to the mound for Friday’s series opener against No. 23 Ole Miss. First pitch is scheduled for 8 p.m. and it will be televised on ESPNU.
Early Deficit
Despite Wicklander and Noland retiring the first nine batters of the game, Arkansas found itself in a pitcher’s duel because its offense couldn’t figure out freshman Ben Cruikshank.
Making his second career start for the Bears, the left-hander limited the Razorbacks to only two hits in a career-high five innings. He did walk three batters, but he also struck out five after coming into the game with more than twice as many walks (13) and strikeouts (6).
“He commanded the strike zone pretty good and started working his changeup,” Van Horn said. “His fastball was in the upper 80s, 90 miles an hour. He just held us down, kind of frustrated us.”
Arkansas had a base runner in four of the five innings, including putting runners on the corners in the first, but went 0 for 8 when runners on base over that span.
The outing actually lowered Cruikshank’s ERA from 10.38 to 6.59.
“He just had his stuff working tonight I guess,” Nesbit said. “That’s baseball. Sometimes it’s going to bounce one way, the other another day, so just a classic case of baseball.”
Meanwhile, Arkansas ran into some issues with Marshall Denton on the mound in the fourth. Missouri State got its first base runner with an infield single and the Razorbacks nearly erased him with a double play, but Joey Polak beat the throw.
That ended up costing them because Jordan Fitzpatrick, who entered the game just 1 for 15 on the season, delivered a pinch-hit RBI single with two outs. A wild pitch in the fifth allowed another run to score and gave the Bears a 2-0 lead.
Bats Wake Up
After pulling their starter, things went south for the Bears. They threw some of their top arms, but that didn’t keep Arkansas off the base paths.
“They went to - it looked like statistically - some guys that they have confidence in that are a little bit older that have pitched on the weekends,” Van Horn said. “That’s when our guys started scoring runs.”
The Razorbacks used a couple of hits and a walk to load the bases with one out in the sixth. That brought Nesbit - the reigning SEC Freshman of the Week - to the plate and he tied it up with a single into center.
“I was just sitting on a fastball, seeing if he was going to give me something to work with and he did,” Nesbit said. “I actually took the first fastball I saw and then I didn’t miss the next one I saw.”
It wasn’t tied for very long because Trey Harris followed with a pinch-hit RBI single to give Arkansas its first lead of the night.
An RBI single by Dominic Fletcher and two-run single by Matt Goodheart broke the game open in the seventh. Heston Kjerstad crushed a solo home run and Jack Kenley added an RBI single to give the Razorbacks even more of a cushion.
“I think we had some really quality at-bats,” Van Horn said. “We laid off some borderline pitches and that gave us a chance to start running a little bit. We took our walks and didn’t go out of the zone too much.”
Bullpen Work
With the slow-starting offense and early deficit, Arkansas was able to get some good innings out of its bullpen. Van Horn said he threw pretty much everyone he wanted to, even Kole Ramage, who they weren’t sure if they were going to use.
Zebulon Vermillion, Kevin Kopps, Elijah Trest and Matt Cronin were the relievers who followed Noland and Denton. Jacob Kostyshock did not make the trip because they knew he wasn’t going to pitch.
“If we had jumped out to a bigger lead we might have thrown a different pitcher or two,” Van Horn said. “We’re down to one game midweek for the next couple of weeks, and obviously we want to get guys some time on the mound, but at the same time we want to get our guys that pitch for us on the weekend, we just want to keep them sharp.”
Cronin was particularly good, needing only eight pitches to induce a pop up and double play to escape the bases-loaded jam he inherited from Trest in the ninth inning.
Reaction to Anderson’s Firing
The biggest news of the day happened a few hours before first pitch between Arkansas and Missouri State, as athletics director Hunter Yurachek announced the firing of basketball coach Mike Anderson.
Van Horn was asked about the move following the baseball game.
“I just appreciate everything Mike has done for the University of Arkansas,” Van Horn said. “He is a friend of mine and I wish him all the best.”
Other Tidbits
~After drawing only 913 total fans to its first three home dates of the season (four games, but one doubleheader), Missouri State had 2,457 fans at Tuesday night’s matchup with the Razorbacks. Many of them were Arkansas fans who made the short road trip north.
~Tuesday’s win improves Arkansas’ record in the series to 57-28 (.671), but it has won just seven of its last 13 games against the Bears.
~With his game-tying single in the sixth, Nesbit extended his hitting streak to 15 games and on-base streak to 22 games. In fact, he has reached base in 24 of 25 games and the only time he failed to do so was a game against Eastern Illinois in which he laid down two sacrifice bunts. “I try not to think about that kind of stuff,” Nesbit said. “I just do whatever I can to help the team win, but yeah, I’m feeling pretty good right now.”
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