FAYETTEVILLE — Dave Van Horn thrives on the competition part of the baseball season and nothing says competition like being tied for the SEC division lead with one series to go.
Thus Van Horn sounded stoked on Wednesday, minutes before he jumped on a plane at Drake Field with his University of Arkansas team to head out for a three-game set at Alabama, starting tonight at 6.
The series between No. 5 Arkansas (37-14, 17-10 SEC) and the Crimson Tide (27-24, 10-16) will determine if the Razorbacks get all or a share of their fourth consecutive SEC Western Division title or finish as low as third. Arkansas is tied with hard-charging No. 11 Texas A&M, which owns the tie-breaker edge over the Hogs for SEC Tournament seeding, and 1.5 games ahead of No. 18 Auburn.
“It’s fun,” Van Horn said. “This league is something else, and to have an opportunity to win it outright, get a piece of it, it’s still right in front of us. It would be great.
“The guys know. We haven’t really talked to them about it. We just talked about finishing strong, putting together some good games and putting together a good [SEC] tournament.”
Arkansas smoked the rest of the league last season, much like Tennessee is doing this year, after winning every regular season series, but the going has been more of a grind this time.
“It’s tough to be at the top at the end, especially in the Western Division in my opinion, because the teams are really good,” Van Horn said. “There’s a lot of name teams that have won the league many times.
“They’ve won national championships. So we’re gonna go out there and do the best we can at Alabama and see if we can get part of it at a minimum, and maybe the whole thing.”
The Aggies finish up at Ole Miss, which swept LSU last weekend and is in a battle to make the NCAA Tournament bracket. Auburn completes its regular season at Kentucky, the only team to win a series over Tennessee. The Wildcats (10-17 SEC) are fighting to not be one of the two teams left out of the SEC Tournament, along with Missouri (8-19), Mississippi State (9-18) and the Tide.
For Arkansas to have a better shot at a series win, the Razorbacks will likely need more length out of their starting pitchers. The trio of Connor Noland (5-3, 3.38 ERA), Hagen Smith (6-2, 4.34) and Jaxon Wiggins (6-2, 5.31), combined for much-longer starts the first half of the season. The trio combined for 12 innings last week in a series loss to Vanderbilt, the Hogs’ first conference series loss at Baum-Walker Stadium since March 29-31 against Ole Miss in 2019.
Noland’s five-inning stint was the longest of the starters last weekend. The senior right-hander allowed a season-high five earned runs last week, and he’s given up 14 total runs on 23 hits and 10 walks over his last 17 innings. He will oppose Alabama right-hander Garrett McMillan (4-4, 3.51) tonight.
“You’re always concerned about it,” Van Horn said of the shorter starts. “But they feel good. I think it’s just a matter of going out and doing it.
“I think that throughout the season, a lot of times it’ll happen earlier. For us, it might have just happened a week or two later. Hopefully those guys will go out and have a good outing this week. They don’t feel tired. Their bullpens are good. Now it’s just about getting it done in the game like they did earlier.”
The Crimson Tide, who were 8-5 in the SEC and in second place behind Arkansas at one point, have dropped seven of their last eight league games to fall 1.5 games out of last place in the West.
Alabama has lost five consecutive SEC series — at Tennessee, vs. Georgia, at South Carolina, vs. LSU and at Auburn — since sweeping three games at Ole Miss on April 8-10.
Both teams will be looking to get out of the gate better on the weekend. Alabama has lost its last four series openers, while Arkansas has dropped three of its last four.
Arkansas has dominated the series for the past dozen years, with a 24-11 record since 2010. Prior to that, the Crimson Tide ruled the series at 38-21, including a 22-2 stretch from 1996 to 2004.
The Razorbacks have five regulars hitting .273 or better in Michael Turner (.310, 6 HR, 35 RBI), Cayden Wallace (.307, 8, 43), Chris Lanzilli (.304, 6, 23), Jalen Battles (.280, 8, 32) and Brayden Webb (.273, 12, 32) and their leading power hitter Brady Slavens (.257) has team highs with 13 home runs and 46 RBI.
The Crimson Tide have five hitters at .292 or better: Andrew Pinckney (.318, 6, 26), Tommy Seidl (.318, 3, 22), Caden Rose (.313, 1, 13), Drew Williamson (.298, 8, 42) and former Arkansas catcher Dominic Tamez (.292, 5, 30), with Zane Denton (.254) their top power hitter with 12 homers and 41 RBI.