HawgBeat - Arkansas wins back-and-forth battle 6-5 over Auburn
Arkansas Razorbacks baseball won a back-and-forth battle 6-5 over the Auburn Tigers on Friday.
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The No. 1 Arkansas Razorbacks (19-2, 5-0 SEC) defeated the No. 23 Auburn Tigers (14-8, 0-5 SEC) to hand the Hogs their second-straight SEC series win with a 6-5 victory at Samford Stadium on Friday evening.
Head coach Dave Van Horn was absent during the game for personal reasons, and pitching coach Matt Hobbs took over his usual duties and spoke about the experience afterward.
"It’s obviously tough for the team just because he’s such a fixture in the dugout and the guys look to him when things are going a little haywire like they were early," Hobbs said after the game. "He’s kind of a calming force in there all the time. It seems like every button the guy presses usually works out in our favor. So it’s never easy when he’s not there.
"Now, I will the guys credit. They played with a ton of energy and they just never really backed down from anything that was going on. When we got down early, when it wasn’t going out way, we were able punch back a lot of different times. I think he’d have been proud of how the guys fought today. But when he’s not there, it always feels a little weird."
It was a back-and-forth battle between both teams, as there were three lead-changes and three ties before freshman catcher Ryder Helfrick hit a moon shot homerun in the top of the ninth to give the Hogs a 6-5 lead.
"If you know Ryder, everyone’s always pulling for this kid because he works so hard," pitching coach Matt Hobbs said. "He’s really tough on himself when he doesn’t do well, and he’d been struggling. So the reaction in the dugout was elation. Not just because we took the lead — I mean, obviously that was important too — but they were all happy for him because of how hard he works and everybody knows what he puts into this thing and how important it is for him to do his job.
"Everyone was really happy for him. We’ve seen him do this. We’ve seen him do it in the fall, we saw him do it early in the spring. It’s been uneven for him, but it doesn’t mean the kid’s not super talented and that everybody on our staff has a lot of faith in him."
With head coach Dave Van Horn out for the game due to personal reasons, the Razorbacks committed two errors and starting pitcher Brady Tygart had a shaky outing. In 3.2 innings pitched, he had a career-high five walks with three earned runs and only struck out four.
"Yeah, I mean it’s just… I guess for a lack of a better term, he’s spinning off the ball a little bit and he’s not staying through the ball as well as he was earlier in the season," Hobbs said. "It’s something that we have to work on and fix. He’s aware of it, I’m aware of it, it’s just something we’re going to have to work through. I think that was the one thing you see from Brady, over-rotating on some of those pitches.
"It pulls him into the other batter’s box. If you look at his misses, he’s either missing arm-side up or pulling the ball into the glove-side of the glove-side batter’s box. That’s usually a hallmark of something… It’ll be a rotational issue that we’ll fix, but Brady’s a good rotator and he knows that’s a strength of his, but sometimes it can be a weakness if he gets going a little bit too fast and tries to create velocity with the wrong parts of his body."
Arkansas' bullpen came up in a big way, though, as RHP Koty Frank, RHP Gage Wood, LHP Stone Hewlett, RHP Cooper Dossett and RHP Will McEntire allowed a combined seven hits and one run with eight strikeouts.
"I think it speaks to the depth and also that we trust those guys in big spots," Hobbs said. "Coop, that’s probably the biggest spot Coop’s had to pitch in his entire baseball career here and I thought he did an admirable job. Koty Frank went in there and threw strikes. They hit some of them and I thought he threw the ball fine. Gage Wood, same thing. Gage was just a little unfortunate with a lot of the stuff. He threw a really good cutter that got hit down the line for a double. We got a little chopper back to him, had some miscommunication in the infield, and they ended up getting on base right there.
"I thought Stone Hewlett, that’s a huge, huge out, to be able to help us get off the field. And then Coop comes in and Ben McLaughlin really makes the defensive play of the day to be able to get us off the field right there on a diving play on a tough ball, in-between hop. Him and Kendall Diggs made unbelievable defensive plays — and Peyton Stovall, too, on that relay throw to get that out at home. I’m proud of the pitching in terms of the guys being able to get into some roles they hadn’t been in before. Super proud of the defense."
Offensively, Ben McLaughlin shined at the plate with a 2-for-3 day including a second-inning solo homerun to tie things up 1-1. Ty Wilmsmeyer added two hits, Will Edmunson had two RBIs and Peyton Stovall and Wehiwa Aloy each added a base knock on the day.
