photo credit: LSU Athletics / Craven Whitlow
Arkansas baseball fans collectively breathed a huge sigh of relief on Saturday when Charles Davalan blasted a three-run homer to essentially seal the Razorbacks’ fourth sweep in SEC play – and first ever over old foe Texas.
Handling the No. 1 Longhorns as easily as they did was a much-needed shot of adrenaline for the Razorback faithful after a tough three-week stretch that saw Arkansas lose series to Georgia, Texas A&M and Florida.
Keep up the momentum on the road, though, will be much harder. With six regular-season games remaining and trailing Texas by just two games in the conference standings, every game from here on out has added importance. Arkansas will head to Baton Rouge this weekend to get a shot at No. 3 LSU before returning home for a highly anticipated series against No. 15 Tennessee.
LSU Baseball Awaits
Third-ranked LSU sits at 38-11 on the season, with a 15-9 conference mark. Their 28-4 home record really jumps off the page, but is no surprise considering they packed nearly 13,400 fans into Alex Box Stadium for a game against the Vols just two weeks ago. On Friday night, Arkansas will enter one of the most hostile environments in college baseball.
That should help the Razorbacks get fired up again after an emotionally-charged sweep of a hated rival last weekend.
“You got all week and now you have to travel and get in their ballpark in front of 13-14,000 people,” Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn said after the Swatter’s Club meeting Monday. “I don’t think we’ll have any problem with being excited about playing. Emotionally we should be ready to go.”
That may be true, but being ready for the team itself is a different ball game. As a group, LSU bats .306. The quartet of Derek Curiel, Ethan Frey, Jared Jones and Daniel Dickinson, all of whom hold averages north of .325, pace the Tigers on offense.
Curiel is a freshman phenom with elite bat-to-ball skills, while Jones and Frey – pronounced like the food – are big-bodied power bats in the middle of the Tiger order.
It is on the mound, however, where LSU has really shined lately. They will run out one of the best Friday-Saturday duos in the country with Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson. Both have had career outings in the last few weeks, with the latter actually sharing SEC Pitcher of the Week honors with Zach Root for his complete game against Texas A&M.
Overall, the Tigers rank second in the SEC in team batting average, just below Arkansas, and third in team ERA, just above the Razorbacks. On paper, the real separator between the two teams is not their offenses – although Arkansas’ is undoubtedly more explosive – or their bullpens, but rather the consistency of their starting rotations.
Keys to Arkansas vs LSU
The first key for Arkansas is preventing the two-headed snake that is Eyanson and Anderson from sinking its teeth into it.
Eyanson has gone at least five innings in his last six SEC starts, giving up only eight earned runs in that stretch. Last weekend at Texas A&M, a series which LSU won 2-1, the right-hander racked up 14 strikeouts while issuing only 1 walk in 9 innings.
Anderson has been slightly less consistent, but is the Tigers’ Friday night starter for a reason. Projected to be taken third overall in the 2025 MLB Draft by MLB Pipeline, the left-hander also threw a complete game with 14 strikeouts back on April 3, holding a top-25 Oklahoma team scoreless.
One stat working in the Razorbacks’ favor is that they have typically found ways to beat pitchers taken in the top 10 of the MLB Draft over the last few years. In fact, they are 5-2 when facing such players who were picked in the last three drafts:
Player, School
(Year, Pick #)Arkansas’ ResultPitcher’s StatsChase Burns, Tennessee*
(2024, No. 2)W, 7-2ND, 5.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 79 pitchesJac Caglianone, Florida^
(2024, No. 6)L, 9-5ND, 4 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 95 pitchesPaul Skenes, LSU
(2023, No. 1)W, 9-3 (10)
W, 5-4ND, 7 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 12 K, 105 pitches
L, 3.2 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 88 pitchesChase Dollander, Tennessee
(2023, No. 9)W, 6-3L, 4.1 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 93 pitchesKumar Rocker, Vanderbilt
(2022, No. 3 / 2021, No. 10)W, 6-4
L, 12-2L, 3.1 IP, 4 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 4 BB, 6 K, 86 pitches
W, 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K, 84 pitches
*Burns transferred to Wake Forest | ^Caglianone also hit a grand slam to help his cause
The key to several of those wins wasn’t necessarily putting up big numbers against the elite pitcher, but rather running their pitch counts up in order to get to the bullpen. That will once again be a point of emphasis this weekend against both Anderson and Eyanson, as they are comfortable throwing 110-plus pitches each in a start if needed. If the Razorbacks come out with the wrong approach, they’ve proven that could be enough to finish a game.
It will also be imperative that Arkansas jumps out to early leads. This adds to the importance of driving up LSU’s pitch counts, as it would serve Nate Thomspon’s offense well to get Eyanson and Anderson out and put some crooked numbers up before LSU’s top bullpen arms come in.
The effects of an early lead or two would also be beneficial from an environment standpoint. LSU is expecting 11,000-13,000 fans for all three games, and taking those rowdy crowds out of the equation early will put the game on a much more even playing field. If Arkansas can’t do that, and tries to play from behind, they will more than likely be staring down the barrel of their fourth series loss in five weeks, and possibly even a sweep.
On the flip side, Zach Root and Gage Wood need to keep up with their performances from a week ago. Van Horn said at the Swatters Club that Wood is about ready to be “let go” and, depending on the situation, he could give Arkansas 70-plus pitches on Saturday before Gabe Gaeckle presumably comes in.
Arkansas Baseball Injury Report
The Hogs have been bitten by the injury bug lately. It sounds like Gabe Fraser will miss more time, Nolan Souza is out for the season, Logan Maxwell re-tweaked his hamstring and Parker Coil has also been riding the pine.
Luckily, it looks like Gage Wood is returning to form after a return three weeks ago and Coil will at least make the trip to Baton Rouge. He could be thrust right back into the high-leverage role in which he compiled a 0.60 ERA across 15 innings before getting hurt.
“I think you use him whenever you need to use him and go from there,” Van Horn said. “He’ll be on the roster, 100%, and he’ll be ready to go.”
As far as Maxwell, Van Horn said his availability is still up in the air. Whether or not he starts in right field could come down to both the status of his hamstring, as well as matchups against the aforementioned LSU pitchers. If he’s unable to play, the Razorbacks at least have Carson Boles, who has hit well in limited opportunities this year and had a big home run in Game 1 against Texas.
With Souza and Fraser out, expect Cam Kozeal to remain at second base. That opened the door for Reese Robinett this past weekend and he made the most of the opportunity. “Big Country” showed some big power last Saturday with two blasts – his first home runs in over two years.
Robinett has stayed faithful to the program for his entire career, and Razorback fans would love nothing more than to see him continue his recent success this weekend. What also helps his case is that his counterpart, Rocco Peppi, has struggled at the dish since returning from his own injury.
Regardless of who runs out there this weekend, Arkansas continuing to ride the wave of momentum created by their sinking of Texas will likely depend on the extent to which it can keep its mature approach at the plate..
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Hear more from Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn following Monday afternoon’s Swatter’s Club meeting:
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