The surprise team of the SEC baseball season is awaiting the University of Arkansas this weekend in Lexington, Ky., with first place in the conference standings hanging in the balance.
The No. 2 Razorbacks are tied with No. 8 Kentucky with each team sporting a 16-5 record atop the SEC chase and each holding a one-game lead in their division.
Kentucky (33-9) entered last weekend with a one-game lead, but the Wildcats dropped two of three games at South Carolina while the Razorbacks (39-7) were winning a home series against Florida.
The Wildcats have announced chair-back seats are sold out at Kentucky Proud Park, which has a capacity of 7,000, so the Razorbacks are in for a raucous environment at the cozy artificial turf stadium.
Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn, whose team has won or tied for two of the past three SEC titles, put the series in perspective when asked about the showdown atop the standings.
“The series all count the same,” Van Horn said. “It’s one win or one loss every time you play. You want to try to win two out of three so you have a tiebreaker.
“You win a couple games every weekend, you’ve got a chance to win the league. It’s a big deal, but it’s not a big deal. It’s another SEC series. The next weekend we’ve got Mississippi State, the last one we go to Texas A&M, so they’re all big.”
Arkansas holds its one-game lead in the SEC West over No. 1 Texas A&M, while Kentucky’s slim edge in the East is over No. 3 Tennessee.
The Razorbacks would have a seemingly built-in advantage for Friday’s 5:30 Central game, which will pit ace left-hander Hagen Smith (8-0, 1.35 ERA) against Kentucky right-hander Trey Pooser (3-0, 3.75).
Arkansas has won all 11 of its weekend openers behind Smith. His individual streak of eight wins was halted last week when he was pulled from a 1-1 game against the Gators that Arkansas eventually won 2-1.
Smith leads the nation with 16.65 strikeouts per nine innings and his WHIP (walks and hits divided by inning pitched) of 0.82 is fourth in the country and second in the SEC.
“Hagen Smith, the guy throwing Friday night, should be the first pitcher taken in the Major League Draft, right?” Kentucky Coach Nick Mingione said. “He’s that good. He’s left-handed, up to 100 mph. Those guys aren’t just walking all over this planet.”
While recent opponents have seemingly not matched their top pitchers against Smith, Kentucky appears ready to roll out its regular weekend rotation. Pooser, a 6-4 senior who had been the No. 1 starter at College of Charleston last year, began this season in the bullpen, but he’s worked his way into the Friday job as staff ace Travis Smith (lat muscle injury) and lefty Dominic Niman (7-3, 5.00) fell out of the spot.
“He’s been really solid and he continues to just pitch at a very high level,” Mingione said. “I just go back to his experience. He’s had it. … When you’re the guy that been handed the ball on a Friday night for a really long time, there is a comfort level.”
The Wildcats are hitting .295 with 8.4 runs per game and they have 92 stolen bases in 114 tries (80.7%). They rank 17th nationally with 2.2 stolen bases per game and their stolen base total is 14 more than second-place Vanderbilt (78) in the SEC and 54 more than Arkansas (38).
“I think they have a really good team,” Van Horn said. “They swing the bat extremely well, they pitch, they field the ball good and if you let them get on a roll, they can get on a roll. So we know we have our hands full.”
Mingione is equally complimentary of the Razorbacks, who have won 10 of the past 12 games in the series, including a sweep in Fayetteville to open conference play in 2022.
“Their pitching is really good,” Mingione said. “They’ve defended at a really high level that I’ve seen. Their offense, they do what it takes. It doesn’t matter if it’s leaving the yard or getting their extra-base hits or grinding you out for a walk.
“You don’t have their record if they’re not well-rounded, right? So when you look at them as a whole, they just do a lot of things that are at a really high level.”
Because the Wildcats stole 12 of 13 bases against South Carolina last weekend, including a steal of home, the Razorbacks’ lineup selections at catcher among Hudson White, Parker Rowland and Ryder Helfrick will be of importance.
Kentucky first baseman Ryan Nicholson (.321 average, 14 home runs, 42 RBI) has 10 home runs in the past 11 games.
The Wildcats got out to a 15-1 start in league play, their best ever, with sweeps of Georgia, Ole Miss, Alabama and Auburn, before running into recent trouble. They lost their final two games of a home series against Tennessee on April 20-21, then lost the series at South Carolina the week after Arkansas won two of three there.
While Arkansas was sweeping a midweek series against Missouri State to post a 12-0 record in midweek contests, the Wildcats had a clear week to go through final exams in preparation for the Razorbacks.
Van Horn announced junior right-hander Brady Tygart (4-1, 2.68) would start Saturday’s 1 p.m. game. Left-hander Mason Molina (3-1, 3.47), who rolled an ankle last week and sat out the Florida series, is likely to return to the rotation Sunday.