After a weekend sweep of Kansas, and a 10-2 Tuesday night win over a very good Oral Roberts team, the Razorback baseball team starts the SEC conference run against the #24 ranked Kentucky Wildcats on Friday. The Hogs are ranked #9 by Baseball America this week.
Coach Van Horn spent the better part of the pre-conference schedule finding out just what pieces fit where. After giving everyone a good look, here’s what appears to have shaken out.
Catcher: Jeff Nutt (.243, 12 RBIs) started two games against Kansas, enabling Brian Walker to rest a sore back. Nutt looked good behind the plate, and will likely catch at least one game a weekend, possibly when Jess Todd pitches. Nutt caught Todd all of last season at Navarro Junior College.
Infield: After a trial run at catcher, Logan Forsythe (.347, 2 HRs) has settled in at third. Tim Smalling at short and Ben Tschepikow at second are both being spelled by Matt Willard. Tschepikow leads the team in errors (8), but his bat (.333, 14 RBIs) makes him a dangerous part of the everyday lineup. At first base, Danny Hamblin appears to have emerged from a season-long slump over the weekend, gathering three hits including a monster home run off the batter’s eye in center last Sunday.
Outfield: After trying all of the infield spots with varying degrees of success, Casey Coon was moved to left field a few games ago, and has looked okay out there. With his bat (.348, 27 RBIs), he must be in there somewhere. Jake Dugger (.339, 3 HRs) has been solid in center. Right field appears to be a platoon…with Wayne Hrozek (.343, 2 HRs) getting all the at-bats against left-handed pitchers, and Jacob Julius and Brad Secrist (.393 avg.) splitting time against righties.
Starting Pitching: It looks like Nick Schmidt (4-0, 1.18 ERA) on Friday, Jess Todd (1-1, 3.71 ERA) on Saturday, and Shaun Seibert (0-1, 3.79 ERA) on Sunday. Todd, who seemed to be locked in as the closer, was moved to the starting rotation after Duke Welker struggled early. Welker looked better, though, against ORU on Tuesday, going six innings. He may very well start this weekend for Seibert, who has a sore elbow.
Relief Pitching: Dallas Keuchel (2-1, 4.22), the freshman from Tulsa, has been the first out of the pen if any of the starters struggle. The setup men appear to be Travis Hill and Stephen Richards, to get to closer Chris Rhodes. I think the coaches are hoping that the starting pitching can carry them deep into the game, and then it may be a “close by committee” approach after that.
The Hogs are on an up-swing starting conference play. Their first two series are against Kentucky and Vanderbilt who are a combined 35-0. Welcome to the start of SEC play! See you at the Baum!
It looks like the SEC will be super-tough this year. Even as good as the Hogs are this year, they will still have their fair share of loses by season's end. They should be very tough by the time the college baseball tourney starts.
A couple of comments.
From the one game I've been to Nutt needs to work on his throws back to the pitcher more than anything. I don't know how many he threw back in the dirt, but let's just say it was more than the pitcher through in the dirt to him.
Van Horn didn't sound good about Seibert before the ORU game on the radio. He seemed to think it might be bad. Did the X-Rays come back negative?
What is it about Arkansas media? Every year in basketball and football we hear about how this or that position is going to be a strength and then it turns out to be something less than that. Now, in baseball, all we heard about was how pitching was going to be our strength… and now it seems we're struggling to find a 2nd and 3rd day starter and a closer.
I'm beginning to think this team is not as good as I had hoped. But, I still think since Van Horn is such a good coach we'll be good enough to compete and have a decent team.
I don't believe this team has quite hit their stride yet. We are very talented, but are still young as far as depth. If you look at the depth chart, there are a lot of 1st and 2nd year guys. Between Van Horn and our conference schedual, I don't think these guys have a choice but to get better.
We will see in the next few weeks how good they are. Van Horn has used a whole lot of players in various spots. As the conference schedule arrives players will settle into more defined positions. Hopefully that will help give more consistency in hitting. Fortsyth for example who they said the other day they had tried at catcher. Hamblin is starting to hit. If Coon settles in left field and plays okay and continues to hit then we could take off. If the pitching gets better then they will be good. Welker and Rhodes and Siebert I think get better as the year goes on. They are in a postion to peak toward the end of the year if they do peak.