HawgBeat - Arkansas Baseball Notebook: Diamond Hogs regrouping after tough stretch
HawgBeat has all of the latest notes and quotes regarding Dave Van Horn's No. 5 Arkansas Razorbacks.
arkansas.rivals.com
FAYETTEVILLE — With two weekends left in the regular season, Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn and the No. 5 Razorbacks still have some stuff to figure out.
After dropping their second conference series of the season at Kentucky over the weekend, the Diamond Hogs left Lexington with more question marks than they had before arriving.
Van Horn met in front of loyal Hog fans for his final Swatter's Club luncheon of the season Monday afternoon and he provided plenty of great updates regarding his team. Thoughts on the hitting woes, Jim Schlossnagle's cheating comments, pitcher injuries, not being satisfied and much more.
On the hitting woes
After playing 19 games over the span of the last four weeks, the Razorbacks finally get a much-needed week off of midweek action ahead of Mississippi State rolling into town this weekend."We're in finals right now starting this week," Van Horn said. "I told them I wasn't going to let them in the building for two days. They can't come around. I won't see them. Unless you're a pitcher that has to stay on track and throw a bullpen because that's your schedule, I don't want them coming around.
"Just trying to get them a break from baseball and the stress. Go handle your academics and hopefully they'll do that. On Wednesday, we'll get back together and have a good workout. Thursday, the same and then be ready for Mississippi State this weekend."
Arkansas has been struggling at the plate recently and it's only hitting .240 in SEC play (24 games). Second baseman Peyton Stovall (.343) and catcher Hudson White (.303) are the only Razorbacks hitting above. 300 in league play this year.
ALSO READ: Comparing Hagen Smith and Paul Skenes through 12 starts
"It was a tough month, physically and mentally," Van Horn said. "I think, they have a couple days off and just a little downtime, not having a midweek game should pick up their energy levels and their strength. The past is the past. We’re in a good situation with our wins, where we’re at, and we need to just go forward from here on in. We just need to swing the bat better."
The Diamond Hogs have left 209 batters on base compared to 184 by opponents in conference play, so there's clearly been an issue at the plate. With arguably the nation's top pitching staff, Arkansas could really use the lineup getting near its full potential as the regular season turns into the postseason soon.
"It’s not like we’ve had a bunch of opportunities to get some guys right against some average pitching," Van Horn said. "Midweek pitching has been good, except maybe one game. Other than that, it’s been guys that are really good coming at us for the most part.
"I just want them to swing the bat better. I want them to stay in the zone more. And then when they get a good pitch, you’ve got to square it up. You foul off pitches in the zone, you don’t get too many pitches to hit in an at bat."
The Razorbacks rank 10th in the SEC in team batting average .(271), 13th in slugging percentage (.444), 9th in on base percentage (.390), 9th in runs scored (333) and 11th in home runs (64).
Van Horn thought back to the Ole Miss series in early April when the Razorbacks swept the Rebels in Fayetteville and he shared what Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco told him afterwards.
"His comment was 'Man, you got a really good pitching staff and you guys are solid,'" Van Horn said. "So I listened to everything he said. Basically he said 'You can't hit.' So I might throw that at the hitters every now and then."
Van Horn followed that up by saying he hopes the offense explodes soon because it should be better than it's been.
On Jim Schlossnagle's comments
For those who missed it, Texas A&M head coach Jim Schlossnagle revealed April 29 on TexAgs that there is an SEC team that recently got busted for cheating.
"I don't know if people know about it yet," Schlossnagle said. "I’m not going to reveal it, but they know that they've had a live feed going to the dugout all year. They are hitting .306 at home and .206 on the road. I don't know.”
Schlossnagle didn't say exactly what the live feed he's referring to is, but it is likely a video feed of some sort in the home team's dugout. Van Horn said he and other coaches talked with Schlossnagle about his comments.
"If you really look at the numbers, you’d need to look at one of the other schools in the one of the other divisions, but, whatever," Van Horn said. "Those are things that you shouldn’t put out there, in my opinion."
Injury updates on freshmen pitchers
Van Horn broke the news that freshman left-hander Colin Fisher (6-1, 1.96 ERA) was set to have season-ending surgery Monday, plus he confirmed that another two freshmen — Hunter Dietz and Adam Hachman — also won't pitch the rest of the year.
Fisher's situation could have involved Tommy John surgery, but the hope was that it would just require the internal brace option, which would be a much shorter recovery.
"He'll be done for the year," Van Horn said. "We don't know if he's going to get what's called an internal brace, which means it's not Tommy John. It just means that there's a little bit of an issue there and it's a lot lets recovery time. We're hoping that's the case.
"That's what all the doctors think — our doctors, doctors that are with big league teams that have looked at his MRIs — That's what they're seeing. When they get in there and if it's torn, they'll do Tommy John surgery and he won't be back for a year."
MORE: Arkansas freshman pitcher Colin Fisher to have season-ending surgery
Dietz is a 6-foot-6 left-hander out of Trinity, Florida, who actually appeared in two games on March 30 and April 9, but is also being shut down. After missing the start of the season while recovering from a stress fracture, Dietz has had the injury come back around.
"Hunter Dietz is a guy you're going to see in the future," Van Horn said. "Had a little issues. He had some bone in there and they had to screw that thing back in there in the offseason. Basically, it's kind of come back.
"So he's going to go in there and get that fixed. He won't pitch for us this year. It's a 4-6 month recovery. He'll get to pitch for us at the end of fall and hopefully he'll be right in the middle of our rotation next year."
Another highly-touted freshman is 6-foot-5 lefty Adam Hachman out of Wentzville, Missouri, who is still trying to get right from offseason surgery (not Tommy John). Hachman hasn't done much in front of the public as a Hog and he hasn't thrown this season, but he was Perfect Game's No. 8 overall left-handed pitcher in the 2023 class.
"I haven’t seen him throw a bullpen lately," Van Horn said. "Coach (Matt) Hobbs works with them. I’ve seen them long toss and throw. There’s not enough strikes in there to get him out on the mound."
Not satisfied
Van Horn made a statement about where his team is at record-wise that I think most fans can relate to.
"It's crazy to think that we're 40-9 and we're still not happy about it," Van Horn said. "I guess that's where our program is now, which is great. It's really hard to win. It's hard to win every year. You look around the league and you see some teams that are really good and are 9-14, 9-15, 10-14 and they're really good."
The Razorbacks have not had an easy schedule by any means. Ranked road series at Alabama, South Carolina and Kentucky have also featured tough two-game midweek matchups against the likes of Texas Tech, San Jose State and Missouri State in between with a home series against Florida sprinkled in.
"It hasn’t been easy," Van Horn said. "A lot of close games. A lot of different situations. Played a lot of different lineups. I would love to play the same lineup from here on out. Now that we play on the weekends only for the most part, that could happen.
"But guys have to do their job and contribute. It’s not always about offense, it’s about making a play here or there just getting a bunt down or whatever. We’ve done that for the most part this year. That’s why we’ve won 40 games already. But I feel like we can be better."
All three games of Texas A&M series on TV
Somehow, all three of Arkansas' top-10 matchups at Kentucky over the weekend were not televised. All three were streaming-only.
The SEC and ESPN made sure that will not happen for another likely top-10 showdown between Arkansas and Texas A&M on May 16-18 in College Station, Texas.
Van Horn revealed Monday that the games were being flexed to national TV, and the Arkansas Athletics website indicates that Game 1 will be on ESPN2, while Games 2 and 3 will both be on SEC Network.
In the polls
D1Baseball: 5
Baseball America: 3
Perfect Game: 4
NCBWA: 4
USAT Coaches: 3
