The No. 1 Arkansas Razorbacks secured a series win over the No. 8 LSU Tigers with an extra-inning victory in Game 2 at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The Arkansas bullpen combined to throw five scoreless frames after Mason Molina battled through five innings of three-run ball while striking out seven. The Razorback offense strung together three early runs against LSU ace Luke Holman, who entered with an SEC-leading 0.78 ERA, and put the game away in the 10th inning. Here’s a closer look at the action and what stood out as the Hogs improved to 22-3 overall and 7-1 in SEC play.
Scoring Recap
Top 3 – LSU 2, Arkansas 0: Steven Milam singled through the left side on the first pitch of the inning, and Tommy White followed with a one-out single before a Jared Jones walk loaded the bases, and Josh Pearson eventually broke through with a two-run single to give the Tigers an early lead.
Bottom 4 – LSU 2, Arkansas 1: Ross Lovich was walked to start the inning, and Nolan Souza worked a free pass with one out, then Ty Wilmsmeyer continued his strong weekend with an opposite-field double down the right-field line.
Bottom 4 – LSU 2, Arkansas 2: In an 0-2 count, Peyton Stovall shortens up and gets the job done, sending an RBI groundout to shortstop to drive home Souza from third.
Bottom 4 – Arkansas 3, LSU 2: Ben McLaughlin works a full count with two outs before coming with a big double off the bat to score Wilmsmeyer and give Arkansas its first lead of the game.
Top 6 – Arkansas 3, LSU 3: Mason Molina issued a pair of walks to start the inning, and Michael Braswell reached with an infield single to load the bases before Arkansas turned to Christian Foutch with nobody out. LSU brought in pinch-hitter Ashton Larson, and he delivered a sacrifice fly to left field to tie the game.
Bottom 10 – Arkansas 4, LSU 3: Will Edmunson reached with one out on an error by LSU shortstop Michael Braswell, and Hudson White wasted no time making it a costly E6 and ripped a 103 MPH double down the left-field line, and Edmunson scored all the way from first base to send a season-high 11,156 Hog fans home happy.
Gorilla of the Game
Peyton Stovall: 3-5, 2 2B, 1 RBI
His efforts at the plate only produced one Razorback run as the hitters behind left him stranded three times, but the Louisiana native Stovall was the best position player in today’s game all-around. He went 3-for-5 at the plate with two doubles (both to left field), and one of his outs produced a key run for Arkansas in a tight game.
Not only did Stovall have a huge night at the plate, but he was lights out in the field at second base, making several tough plays look easy to help keep runs off the board. He’s also now hitting .353 this season.
Most Valuable Arm
Christian Foutch: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K
The stat line out of context might not exactly jump off the page to you, but it’s hard to top facing five hitters and getting six outs after entering the game with the bases juiced and nobody out in your first high-leverage outing of the season.
Foutch had thrown well in his last few outings, but he had not been thrown into a spot like this yet. The sophomore right-hander not only rose to the occasion, but continues to show he’s got the stuff to be a big-time factor for the Hogs in the back-end of the bullpen, and doing so against the defending champs is a good way to earn the trust of your head coach.
Foutch touched 99 MPH with his fastball on multiple occasions, consistently pumping in 97-98, and he got a big strikeout with his infamous splitter. He only needed 12 pitches to put together this breakthrough performance, and he threw nine of those for a strike.
Other Notes & Observations
- The Razorbacks didn’t score a run in the first three innings, but they put together several strong at-bats to get Holman’s pitch count up to 60. Peyton Stovall doubled to left on the first pitch of the first inning, and the Hogs put two runners on in the second and third innings. After finally breaking through with three runs in the fourth, Arkansas forced an early exit for Holman with one out in the fourth, marking his shortest start of the year.
- Arkansas entered the weekend 13th in the SEC for walks during league play. The Hogs worked 11 walks in Thursday’s series opener before forcing five in four innings against Luke Holman, who entered the contest with only eight walks in 34.2 innings.
- The Hogs tried to whip out some small ball in the bottom of the seventh inning with runners on the corners and one out, but LSU first baseman Jared Jones made a nice play on a Jared Sprague-Lott bunt to get Wehiwa Aloy out at the plate with a glove flip.
- LSU turned to its top bullpen arm in LHP Griffin Herring in the bottom of the fifth inning with one out, and he struck out the first six Hogs he faced before allowing back-to-back singles to Wehiwa Aloy and Kendall Diggs. After Herring worked out of a seventh-inning jam to keep the score tied at three, Arkansas turned to its freshman closer Gabe Gaeckle to start the eighth inning…
- Gaeckle also has quite the claim to being the Hogs’ most valuable arm, delivering 2.2 scoreless innings of work with three strikeouts before turning it over to Stone Hewlett with two outs in the 10th at 48 pitches. The outing matches a season-long for the freshman, who continues to rack up valuable experience in high-leverage spots for Arkansas. His stuff was electric as always, pumping 95-98 with the fastball while getting swings and misses with both his slider and curveball.
- While he did vulture a win after getting just one out, Stone Hewlett continues to be a master of doing his job. For the most part this year, his job description has simply been to get left-handed hitters out, but he does it at an insanely efficient clip, allowing just one run in six innings of work with a whopping 14 outs.
- Each team came away with two hits with runners in scoring position, but Arkansas had 16 at-bats to LSU’s six with RISP. The Hogs finished just 5-for-24 (.208) with runners on base.
Up Next
The No. 1 Arkansas Razorbacks and No. 8 LSU Tigers will return to Baum-Walker Stadium on Saturday afternoon for the series finale. First pitch is set for 2 p.m. (CT) and will be streamed on SEC Network+ via the ESPN App.
Why did we switch order of starting pitchers? Is Brady Tygart ok?
They felt like he needed an extra day of rest after struggling a bit last week. He wasn’t sharp at all, and his velo was down a tick. He’s starting today, so we’ll see if it helped him.