BY DUDLEY E. DAWSON
A night at Baum-Walker Stadium dubbed Bark in the Park quickly turned into something resembling Walkapalooza on Tuesday night.
No. 5 Arkansas (26-6) had 13 hits and took advantage of 15 free passes, 6 wild pitches, and 3 hit batters from seven Little Rock pitchers en route to a 21-5 seven-inning run-rule victory over the Trojans.
The Razorbacks moved to 15-1 against in-state foes on a night when numerous dogs joined the announced 9,246 humans that bought tickets.
Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn watched 12 consecutive Razorbacks reach base in an 11-run, 50-minute first inning that saw a total of 21 batters come to the plate for the two teams.
Arkansas led 9-2 at the close of that first inning as Little Rock (17-12) walked seven and Razorback starting pitcher Cody Adcock (3-1) a pair of his own.
“I thought the offense did a great job of not trying to do too much,” h Dave Van Horn said. “They passed it to the next guy. If they threw a strike, take a swing. But they if they were in a hitter’s count, they let pitches go by that they didn’t like.”
Arkansas left fielder Jared Wegner, who has team highs of 12 homers and 44 RBIs, hurt his thumb diving into a base in the opening inning.
Van Horn did not know whether Wegner will play in Wednesday’s 4 p.m. game between the two schools – which is another Bark in the Park day.
“I hope it will be, but we’re just trying to be careful with him,” Van Horn said. “You never know. The kid is tough.”
Tavian Josenbger had a two-run single in the second to make it 11-1 and Jace Bohrfoen and Harold Coll both launched two-run homers in a four-run third that pushed the advantage to 15-2.
Coll, Hudson Polk, Kendall Diggs and Grimes all had RBIs as Arkansas tallied five more runs to in the fourth to go up 20-2.
Grimes added a sacrifice fly in the sixth in a game where Diggs, Bohrofen, Caleb Cali, Polk and Peyton Holt all had two hits each.
Arkansas was 24 of 33 in advancing runners during the game with the walks factored in.
“I think that’s a pretty good percentage,” Van Horn said. “I’ll take that all year long. We did advance a lot of runners. Like I said, we hit some home runs, but we moved people up.
“Obviously, some of those advances were walks just pushing guys around. We did a good job of driving in runs, and I think we hit a lot of balls hard tonight with two strikes.”
Grimes walked twice in the first inning on a night when 11 Arkansas batters that received bases on balls came around to score.
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Van Horn said. “I think we might have tied a record tonight because I don’t know if it could be harder to walk twice in one inning.
“We had an individual walk twice in one inning tonight. I haven’t seen too many guys get up twice in one inning. I don’t know if I ever have, maybe once.”
Adcock allowed two runs while pitching four innigs while Ben McLaughlin pitched a scoreless fifth and gave up three runs in the before Sean Fitzpatrick got the final six outs for Arkansas.
After jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning, Little Rock head coach Chris Curry watch a trio of his pitchers walk seven Arkansas batters in the bottom of the frame.
Suddenly the home team led 9-2 and the game had flipped the script.
“The game quickly changed for us from scoring a couple of runs in the first inning and starting the way we wanted to what happened,” Curry said, “to being disappointed that we were not more competitive on the mound.
“I have not send a box score yet, but I bet the walks were north of 15. That’s the frustrating part. And that’s the challenge every time we play against a quality opponent. I mean let’s not give them anything.
“They are very good for a reason, but they don’t need any help. That was the frustrating and disappointing thing – how much we gave them. That’s not to discredit them because they did a great job of executing and capitalizing.
“But what I am looking for right there on the mound – especially after we start the game by scoring two in the first inning – is strikes and I am looking for lockdown inning and then we will see how the game goes.”
The pitchers control issues were disheartening to the Trojans hitters per Curry.
“It really affects their psyche when all off a sudden you go from being up 2-0 to very quick being down 9-2,” Curry said. “And then we have to start managing our bullpen because teams are keeping conference play in mind.”
Arkansas hosts Tennessee this weekend while Little Rock travels to play conference foe Eastern Illinois.
“They have a huge series this weekend and we have a huge series this weekend at Eastern Illinois and then we both have a game against each other tomorrow,” Curry said. “So we are not trying to get anybody hurt, but still manage the game as best we could.”
Arkansas is slated to start Ben Bybee (2-0, 4.41 ERA) in Wednesday’s game while Little Rock plans to open with Erik McKnight, who has thrown two innings this season.
