Arizona State 7, Arkansas 6 (Tempe Super Regional)
June 13, 2010 at 1:33am by TipsterHog
Filed under Arkansas Razorbacks, Baseball, NCAA, Recap
ArkansasRazorbacks.com: Razorbacks fall in opener to Arizona St.
Bo Bigham had four hits to lead the No. 15 Arkansas Razorback baseball team, but after 11-plus innings, the Razorbacks would fall to No. 1 Arizona State in the first game of the Tempe Super Regional at Jim Brock Ballpark, 7-6.
Also:
- ArkansasRazorbacks.com: Game Stats, Game Highlights, Post-game Comments (Video)
- Robbie Neiswanger: Arizona State Edges Arkansas in 12 Innings, Cox Sets School’s Single-Season Hit Record in Loss
- Matt Jones: Arizona State 7, Arkansas 6
- ESPN.com: Hogs close, but fall short to Sun Devils
I watched the game late last night. I can’t recall ever seeing balls and strikes called in such a one-sided manner or in such an inconsistent manner across the game. One might think that in the late innings the ump couldn’t see as well as earlier in sunlight but this doesn’t explain why ASU got the high strikes called more than either Heaton (?) or Pratt. And eventually even the low strikes. In the end, putting pitches on platters was Arkansas’s only option.
Do you think it matters that so many SEC teams are still competitive at the super-regional level, that it could be an SEC College World Series? If so, why? Baseball is NOT a revenue sport, so why would someone care about regional distribution?
VolFan
Knoxville
Richard…good comment…welcome. As you said, there’s not a lot of argument that the home plate umpire was all over the place. Even the ESPN announcers gave up trying to find his strike zone.
The Hogs pitching staff have not walked many all year but it looked like to me they were trying to “place” a lot of pitches just to get a strike call. Not good when you’re playing against a potent offense.
With the poor umpiring and all the mistakes by the Hogs (baserunning, errors, walks), it really was surprising to me that they were still in the game in the end. You rarely win against very good teams like Arizona State with that many mistakes.
No doubt the SEC is extremely competitive in college baseball but if you look at the last several CWS winners, there are quite a few from other conferences as well. I think it’s going to be a pretty regular thing that the SEC has at least two teams in the CWS field every year. This year it does look like there might be even more.