Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Play ball.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: You're listening to the Whole Hog Sports Podcast.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: And now here's your host, Matt Jones.
Arkansas beats Oklahoma in a series over the weekend, although they lose the series finale and it's always weird when they win the series, but they lose the series finale. There's just such a weird kind of bittersweet maybe is the right word feeling among the fan base whenever that happens. And we've seen it happen a lot this year. Bubba Carpenter in studio with me. I want to tell you today's podcast brought to you by H and R Tire and auto. They're a third generation family owned business serving northwest Arkansas since 1976. Just like great baseball programs, H and R is built on consistency, trust and doing things the right way. No shortcuts and no gimmicks at H and R Tire and Auto. Also brought to you by Eglins Best. When it comes to your game day, you want the best in your lineup. That includes your eggs. Eglins Best delivers more the nutrition you need with six times more vitamin D and 25% less saturated fat than ordinary eggs. You can score now with Eglins Best. Better taste, better nutrition, better eggs. Visit eglundsbest.com for more information.
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I think this is the third time this year that Arkansas has won an SEC series by winning games one and two.
But losing Game three happened against South Carolina, happened against Missouri. Both of those on the road. And I think there was some disappointment in losing Game three to both of those teams because they're so low in the SEC standings. I didn't think Arkansas played very well in Game three in either of those games, especially offensively. That was the thing that stood out to me. About both of those was their bats just kind of totally disappeared in Game 3. In both of the Columbias yesterday, the bats were there, but we just, we continue to see, and I feel like it's been this way for the better part of a month, that Arkansas just is really struggling to put together three solid days of pitching. We remember what happened with Georgia, obviously, who could forget at game three? And Oklahoma felt like a little bit of a. A watered down version of what happened against Georgia. But even like last week, Bubba, when they played Ole Miss, the reason that the pitching, I think was so good in game three was because they got hammered and had to kind of pitch off a little bit in game two and save their arms for a game that they felt like they could win in game three against Ole Miss. That's the big concern with this team.
You know, you think about from a, like a regional standpoint, like if they get into a loser's bracket in a regional, it feels like it's going to be an uphill climb for them to be able to get out of it because the pitching depth just, it just has not been there for a while.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is putting together three games in a row and we just haven't been able to do it. And you know, it's crazy. Going into the weekend, we wanted to win the series. Well, we won the series, but you still just walk away. It's like you said, with a bad taste in your mouth. Had we lost game one and won the next two games, we'd be feeling good today. We'd be like, oh, yeah, we won the series. But, you know, that's baseball. You're never really satisfied unless you get the sweep. But to your point about pitching, man, it's. It was hard to watch yesterday at times, and not just that, we made a few mistakes. You look early in the game, you know, Helford gets back, picked.
Runners at first and second. Two outs. Alloy up with a 20 count.
You back pick there. You know, little things like that can add up. Runner tagged up, fly ball to right. A runner tags up from first and goes to second. That should never happen. Caught us off guard. There was a delay steal where you, you know, kind of caught him middle infield, off guard. I just felt like there were times that you just, you know, we always talk about never taking a pitch off. I feel like we took a couple pitches off and I don't know what that was with.
It almost looked like they were stealing and then Damian didn't go and so helfer had to get back to the bag, but I don't think they'd be stealing right there with a loy up and a 20 count with two outs.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know what that was. I don't know if maybe the signs got messed up or crossed or what I did notice. Did you see Nate Thompson's reaction in the dugout? I mean, it was as animated as. As I think I've ever seen him. And he's the one who's putting the signs on for them. And you go back to like, remember last year, they had the watches that they could look at and they'd say, okay, steal here, or whatever the case might be, and they made them take the watches away. Because the allegation, I don't know if this was true or not, was that a couple of years ago, at least one of the SEC teams was somehow, I guess, stealing signs off the devices. I'm not exactly sure how that worked, but, you know, last year they wouldn't let them take that off or they wouldn't let them wear the devices anymore when they were on offense.
I thought about that yesterday as I watched Nate's reaction to the dugout. And, you know, he walked down to the end of the dugout and you couldn't see who he was talking to because they both came in down at the far end. But you could tell just on his walk over there that he was really frustrated about something that had occurred. Some sort of miscommunication.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I would assume it was a missed sign, but. But I don't know. But I mean, that's getting off topic. You asked me about the pitching, but I guess I was more going into the mistakes as a whole. So sorry. Sorry about that. But yeah, and you know, you see Fisher out there. First of all, Gibler wasn't very good yesterday. And, you know, I've been a Gibler fan. I keep feeling like he's trending in the right way.
You know, didn't really have his good stuff yesterday. Do a couple good change ups left some left some breaking balls up, got behind a lot.
Eaves comes in and kind of, you know, slows things down a little bit. But then after that, it just wasn't good. You know, I think our bullpen gave up 10 runs yesterday.
You know, Fisher gets two quick outs in that. What was it, the seventh inning?
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Seventh inning after Arkansas tied it. Yeah, in sixth.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: And.
And then just couldn't get the third out. You know, I think that's the frustrating part. You know, you see Kind of how that all came about. And then, you know, a walk, a home run.
The, the pitch that was hit out wasn't, wasn't a bad pitch. It was a slider down.
[00:06:56] Speaker A: You're talking about the second home run because he gave up a home run in the, the earlier inning.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the, I think it was two, two slider down.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: It was Jackson Williams.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah, Will, it's. He just stayed on the tracks there. I mean if, if you're a right handed hitter and a left, he throws you a breaking ball, breaking down, you really back leg it. I mean that it's going to run right into barrel. And with his swing it ran right into his barrel. But that seventh inning just kind of got away from him. You know, you hit the lefty oh two, you know, boy, with two outs, you sure don't want to do that. Of course he's not trying to, you know, not trying to hit him. And then next batter gets 02. Those fastball down the middle, guy smokes at 106 to right center.
Just kind of went downhill from there.
But if you want to look at the bright side, you know, Brissy came in. Brissy looked good. I thought he had good velo. The grand slam was actually a 98 mile an hour fastball. Looked like it was outer third. The guy hit it 95 miles an hour, hit top of the fence.
I think that was the, the big swing in the game right there. We get an out right there.
I think we win the game still.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I felt like the balloon popped in the stadium at that point.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah, really did.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: They were a strike away from getting out of that inning and getting to the stretch at 7, 7. And I was actually talking to Christina who works with me and I said, this is going to be a loud pop in this stadium if he gets an out right here.
Because they had just tied the game in the sixth. It looked like it was going to be a 1, 2, 3, seventh inning at the start because Fisher retired the first two pretty quickly.
And then it just. They couldn't get it out. I mean, they went from being a strike away from getting out of that inning to. It took them 25 minutes of real time to get that last out. And I don't know, sometimes, sometimes you can feel like you get behind, but. And especially on a day like yesterday, I actually kind of felt Arkansas had a run in them and they did to a certain extent. They got it back to 14 to 10. But I thought they probably had, I thought they had more runs in them. Than they ended up getting over the last, what, three innings of the game. But boy, it just took forever. And the way that top of the seventh just droned on, people are leaving the ballpark. I think it kind of started raining at some point, maybe in the eighth.
Boy, it was just, I don't know, it's a weird thing.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it was.
And it was, you know, it's tough to sit through when it's like that. But you know, you look at baseball, Matt, I mean, it's. Hitting is contagious.
We see it with our guys once we get on a roll. We saw it the day before with our guys in the eighth inning.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: You probably saw what Skip Johnson told me yesterday. He said that inning that we had today, I watched the same inning.
Them have it Arkansas, you know, them being Arkansas have that yesterday. So I think in some ways Oklahoma feels like this thing kind of evened out a little bit because they felt like they kind of had the game in hand going into the bottom of the 8th on Saturday, Arkansas puts together the beginning and you know, they kind of returned the favor in game three.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah, and so you can, you know, I guess if you're a glass half full guy, you can say it wasn't really bad pitching, it was just good hitting, but, oh, you good two strike hitting.
Or you can say, well, we left too many balls over the middle of the plate. I think it's how you view it. I think it goes back to that whole, you know, you can watch a baseball game and pick out 50 positives or 50 negatives, but I do think we have to make better pitches.
Especially you know how I feel about the O2 thing. Yeah, too many, too many O2 balls hit hard.
I think that's the part that frustrates me.
But give ou credit. They, they battled yesterday and I feel like they, you know, I hate to say they wanted it worse than we did, but I think their backs were against the wall and they really had to have a win. But I did like the way we battled back and, and tied the game. You know, little things that I love.
I like Kozia's home run yesterday.
Takes a 31 fastball down and away for a strike and then gets a 32 fastball in the zone and hits a home run.
Those are the at bats that I really like because, you know, he's, it's a hitter not afraid to hit with two strikes. And you saw us hit, I wrote it down. We had six two strike home runs on the weekend.
I mean, that's big. That's that's us battling.
I don't remember how many we had. I think three, seven pitch home runs. Because Phil and I were talking about it on the air how seven pitch home runs, that means you got guys up there battling, fouling off pitches and then when they get a mistake pitch, you know, hammering it just like kind of like, you know, oh, you did to us. So you're right, it was, it was similar on both sides of it. But, but at bats like that show me a lot of confidence in a hitter, you know, to be able to take the 3:1 pitch, you know, get the 3:2 pitch you like and hit it over the fence for a three run homer. That's, that's what I like.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: I think what surprised me the most yesterday was the long leash they gave Colin Fisher in the seventh inning. It wasn't so much bringing it back out for the seventh after they had tied the game, and especially not after he got those first two outs. Third batter gets on with a walk.
Like we said, Willets, you know, he just, he, it was over the plate. Like you said, it's low in the zone and the guy just kind of golfs it out of the ballpark and it's nine to seven. But it felt like when it was nine to seven, bubba, that the way the ball was flying out of the ballpark yesterday, a 9 to 7 lead is not, that's not a safe lead.
It was the long leash they gave him.
When you've seen, you know, so many times with him and SEC play, I mean, his SEC era is like 13 and something right now. His SEC whip is well over two.
It was that long leash where it was, okay, next guy gets on, hit by pitch, next guy gets on with the single, next guy. And I don't know, just if they had McIlvaine up and you heard Dave Van Horn say afterward that, you know, he was kind of hesitant about double. I think he's had double dipping with him because he had pitched 20 pitches the day before.
Boy, I just, I felt like letting Fisher go for as long as they did and, you know, it kind of felt like he just wasn't going to get an out right there in that moment.
That was the difference in the game. It wasn't necessarily the Mark Brissey pitch where the guy hits a grand slam. It was the fact that maybe they just didn't. I don't know if go for it's the right word, but it, the game felt very winnable still when they were down 9 to 7, it did not feel winnable when it was 13 to 7.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they were just hoping they could get one big pitch out of him to finish that inning. I understand him facing the lefty, you know, but he hits him. 02, the next guy gets ahead. 02. And I think they were seeing that he still had some quality pitches in him and I think that's what it was. You know, I think sometimes you trust your eyes and you see good pitches, you're like, okay, he's going to get through this. And then it just doesn't happen.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Why do you think he struggles so much against SEC teams? Because, I mean, he's so good. He was so good in the non conference on the weekends. He was the best pitcher they had the first three or four weeks of the season. I guess first three started to kind of go sideways on him on the fourth, and then he's been really good in the midweek. And I understand the midweek competition's not what they're seeing on the weekend, but they're playing some good teams in the midweek. Like he came in. I thought he pitched pretty well against Missouri State, who's one of the better hitting teams in the country.
Why do you think it goes so different for him on the weekends? Because it just has not gone well for him in SEC play this year.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: I mean, SEC hitters are good.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Is it the velocity?
[00:14:28] Speaker B: I think when you throw 91, you got to be able to locate your fastball.
You got to be on those righties. You got to be able to get in on the righties.
And I think he's just not able to locate that fastball in enough. And then you start relying on your off speed pitch. The slider is really good. It's a, it's a good pitch.
You can't rely on it too much. I think he's got a good change up. I wish he would use his change up more, but I think that's it. I think just the, the inability. You got to pitch off your fastball. Even if you throw 90, 91, you still got to be able. They have to respect your fastball. So you got to be able to come in with that fastball and try to hit that inside corner. And I think that's a lot of it. It's just not being able to locate that pitch where, you know, there's times when he's good. He can, he can, he can use the fastball to set up his off speed.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: I wanted to read you this stat. This is from Daniel Shee. He covers the razorbacks for the On3 site here in Fayetteville. He tweeted this today. He said that Arkansas in two strike situations. Because we've talked about, you talked about this and I even wrote about it. Oklahoma, they had, I think eight of their 13 hits yesterday were with two strikes. Five of them were RBI hits. I think three of them were home runs. And then they also had the two strike hit where Zach Stewart overran the ball in the ninth inning and that ended up contributing to a run. So they got a lot of runs with two strikes. Yesterday he said this year Arkansas with two strikes teams are batting.156 against them. He said the MLB average right now is.159. I guess the reason he uses the MLB average is because college baseball, there's not a great database where you can go and compile what college teams are doing.
Surprisingly, I thought Colin Fisher is the best two strike pitcher on the team. He's got a.111 average against him. And the worst, and this probably doesn't come as much surprise has been Gabe cackle. He's got a.200 average against him in two strike situations. I wonder when you hear those numbers what your thoughts are.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Are those SEC only?
[00:16:34] Speaker A: That is, that's. Overall, I would like to guess that in the SEC it's probably a lot higher.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: I'd like to see the SEC over only two strikes because it's going to be a difference for sure.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: The other thing that I thought about when I was reading these was that I would like to see the two strike percentage too with runners on. Because those are the two strike pitches that really kill you whenever they get a hit with two strikes and say a runner at second or third base or sometimes even first base.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Well, one thing I'm big on, the two strike, two out hit. And I really would love to delve deeper into the stats and see, you know, what, how, how we are in that situation. Two strikes, two outs, you know, I don't know because that's a dagger. That's a, that's, we always say, you know, offensively that's a dagger to the other team. A two strike, two out, RBI hit. You know, pitcher feels like he's out of the inning and then boom. Next thing you know you, you know, you hit one the gap, score a couple runs, two strikes, two outs. That's, that's, that's tough for the other, for the pitcher, for the opposing team. And, and we talk about it from our side all the time, but you know, we don't view it as much from the other side.
I don't know. I guess I'd just like to see the SEC only and. But once again, I think part of it you. It's, oh, use a pesky team.
They don't. Well, I think the thing I couldn't figure out is they hit that so many home runs on the weekend.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: They had nine in the last two days. They had hit 48 and 47 games before that.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And they had 24 in SEC play coming in SEC only play.
And. Yeah. To hit that many in two days.
I mean, the air was. Seemed a little light. Ball was carrying, but still northeast wind was.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: Was pushing the ball out just a little bit. But it wasn't. It wasn't significant like some of the days we've seen.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So I mean, still, that just seemed.
Maybe they just got on a roll. I don't know. I mean, they don't have guys in the lineup hitting it. They didn't hit a single ball like, you know, 110, 115. Like we hit several balls that are. Which. It doesn't matter. You're hitting it. 98, 99. It goes over the fence. Of course, the grand slam, you know, already said against Brissy was 95.
That's the only spot in the ballpark it goes over the fence. Well, I guess if you hook it down a line, it might have gone. Left field line might have gone.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Did it bounce off of the. Off the top of the fence padding? That's what it looked like.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: It looked like to me it skimmed off the top.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Okay.
So.
But yeah, you're talking three, four feet difference. That's a. That's a fly out on the warning track.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Because Stuart Zach was almost there.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: So that's the breaks, right?
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And then I say if that ball doesn't go out, we win. I really do. I just feel like we win the game.
I never thought we were out of that game until then.
And then I thought, okay, we still have. We had three at bats. We're okay.
And then he brought in a dude to kind of. Kind of, you know, we struggle with a little bit, but. Yeah, I think it just depends on how you view it. I. I just wish. I think we're still lacking that. That third arm. But boy, it was good to see the Kramer do what he did yesterday.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And he's been dealing with. What was it, a calf injury for better part of two months now.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Was it like early March, I think was when we noticed it was the Stetson Game, it was game four against Stetson. He came in, I don't think he recorded an out in the, in game four.
And we just haven't seen him a whole lot since then. Yesterday was first time that he's pitched since the Auburn series. That would have been like April 2nd, 3rd. Somewhere in there they thought about him maybe being a starter, maybe, I don't know, maybe the outing he had yesterday, the fact that he's got some starting experience, starting experience in the postseason, maybe you run him out there in a starting role, I don't know. But that, that was something that I thought was, that's, that's one of the things that you come away from the weekend thinking, hmm, what, what could this possibly be? Because they had big plans for him. I mean, obviously you'll get him out of the portal. Anybody you get out of the portal, Whether it be Decramer, McIlvaine, Kersher hasn't panned out, you know, a whole lot this year. Although I think Kersher, he's, he's a lot more. I, I thought going into the year he's more behind in development than the other two because I think he went to OU as a position player. Right. Or maybe as a two way guy.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: I think he was a two way guy.
[00:20:57] Speaker A: Okay. But it was really at OU and I think maybe end of the season at OU that he just kind of became a pitcher. So all of that's to say to Kramer. I feel like they had big plans for him to be a big part of the staff this year.
And it's kind of been easy to forget about him because the, you know, the outings that he had prior to yesterday just hadn't gone so well.
See, I thought that was kind of encouraging the way he threw the last two innings.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: I did too. And the first time I saw the Kramer, I thought, man, this dude, that's weekend stuff right there. I was thinking maybe, you know, day three starter, but, you know, the stuff's there. So I don't know if he's been throwing. I would assume he's been throwing the live hitters on the side. But I'll tell you who else looked good yesterday is Brissy. I mean, his fastball was good.
98. Of course, that pitch ended up being a grand slam, but, but still up to 98.
I don't think he landed a slider. You know, he tried a couple, but I don't think he landed a slider. But, you know, that's, that's a good sign, you know, like Dawson came in and do do a pretty good inning. So stuff looked pretty good. His slider looked good. Fastball, cutter.
I don't know.
Somebody has to just step up and look. Matt, if we get, here's you look at Hunter Deets, complete game, seven innings on Friday, I'm thinking, okay, we're going to sweep this series. We had all kinds of pitching. We didn't have to use anybody and then we had to use a few more guys.
You know, probably, you know, to come back and win that game on Saturday, I would use some guys. And so it's hard to recycle some of those guys on Sunday. But boy, after Friday I thought, man, we're in great shape here.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: It's not just step ups. They gotta have somebody give them length.
Like that's, that's the thing I see with the step Dietz is he can give you six, seven innings pretty consistently.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: But everybody else bubba it, you know, with maybe the exception of Gibler going what, six innings a couple of times and one of those, he took a pretty good, you know, pounding against Ole Miss for the first inning of it.
There just hasn't been a whole lot of, there's not a whole lot of pitchers on that staff. You say, hey, that's somebody who can give you five innings. Gackle. It feels like Gackle's about four to five innings pretty reliably with him. And then it kind of goes down at that point.
It's just, that's the thing. And that's why I'm a little intrigued by decramer, because if he is over whatever the, you know, the calf injury that he had and he can give you some length, that sure changes. I think how you feel a lot about this pitching staff. You're still, I think there's still a lot of concerns about it.
But you know, I don't want to put too many hopes on James decramer because I don't know if yesterday was, if that's a blip on the radar, if that's something that you can rely on more. But I'm just saying that if he can pitch to what the expectation was for him and give him some length, I do think that maybe changes some things in terms of how you look at this pitching staff moving forward.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: No, I agree. I think just having one more guy down there eat up a few innings would be huge. Because, you know, Gackel, like you said, four innings, maybe five, he threw 81 pitches.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: What do you go, four and two third. Is that right? Yes.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Are you five hits, three runs. But I showed, he showed signs of being good, like he threw some really good pitches. So a lot of times like I'll look either through the binoculars, like I want to look at their faces so either on the network, the broadcast, or I'll look through the binoculars and I could see frustration like after some pitches because he would get ahead and he just couldn't land that two strike pitch. Next thing you know he goes from 02 to 3.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: 2.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: And you could see frustration, you know, and, and, and you know, but at times he showed signs of being Gabe Gackel of old. You know, fastball looked good and he threw some good breaking balls. I like that slower breaking ball that he throws. I think that's a good pitch to get him off his slider and, or tunnel his fastball after that.
So the stuff's there at times. So that's something to build on. And so even if we don't have a day three starter that we, we can trust, if we could just get Gackle to eat up a couple more innings, then Sunday we could use or game three we'd use as a bullpen day and just have an opener and just work from there and, and go
[00:25:31] Speaker A: through the bullpen and have better bullpen arms available for game three because you're not using them so much in game two. A reminder, our baseball podcast sponsored by H and R Tire and Auto. They're a local shop that's been family owned for three generations. They built their reputation on taking care of customers the right way. And that kind of longevity doesn't happen by accident at H and R Tire and Auto. Good news from the weekend is that I think Arkansas is kind of in the.
And we've talked about their hosting.
I don't know if their hosting chances have changed a whole lot.
And we talked about, I think the RPI is going to be really hard to overcome. But Kendall Rogers says they've got a chance.
And I guess as long as Kendall Rogers says it, we'll take it as the gospel truth in college baseball. Right now you look at what happened, it's going to take some, I'm trying to think how to say this. It's going to take some help elsewhere and Arkansas is going to have to win some games. I mean, I think that yesterday you put that in the bucket with game three against Missouri and game three against South Carolina and maybe another game or two where it's like, well, that feels like one that you'd really like to have back at the end. And those really start to accumulate. When you're talking about are you a host, are you a number two seed? If you're a number two seed somewhere, you know, are you the, you know, in the top quadrant where you get the bottom four regional host or you're in that next group where the teams may be a little bit tougher.
You look though at what happened elsewhere yesterday or over the weekend.
I think two results really, or two series results really caught my eye. Number one was that KU got swept by West Virginia. Ku, I think they're going to host Bubba. But all of a sudden West Virginia is within a game of KU in the Big 12 standings and West Virginia is one of those teams that I think is in that. I said there's probably close to a dozen of them with Arkansas who I think prior to last week or prior to this last weekend were, you know, right there on the outside knocking on the door. Now I think West Virginia may have a pretty good chance at being a regional host. Coastal Carolina also lost a series over the weekend against Old Dominion. Coastal Carolina, they've had a good season, but you have too many of those type of losses when you're especially from a non power conference.
I think that can really hurt you. So those are a couple of series that caught my eye. You look at some of those teams who are kind of in that group with Arkansas mentioned West Virginia, I think Ole Miss is in that group with Arkansas. They beat A and M2 out of three over the weekend. So it was a good weekend for them in terms of staying in the hosting picture. All of a sudden Oklahoma State has popped into the hosting picture. They swept TCU in Stillwater two weeks ago and then this over this weekend they went to Arizona State and won a series and all of a sudden they're not going to win the Big 12, but they're becoming a team that's moving up the Big 12 standings a lot.
So those are some teams that I think are right there. I'm trying to think of who else. I looked at Wake Forest, they played Western Carolina, I think over the weekend. I don't know that that moves them one way or not. Oregon is a team that Kendall talked about when he was on our show last week of saying that as of last week they would be a host.
But what's going to happen to them? Well, they had UCLA on the ropes. They beat UCLA first time that UCLA's lost a Big Ten game this year and they had him on the ropes in game three. UCLA comes back and wins it. So I don't Know what that does for Oregon? I think the fact they beat UCLA in the first place, even just one time probably helps them a little bit.
But, you know, we'll see Nebraska, they swept Iowa over the weekend, but they've still got that Ohio State sweep that they've got to deal with.
It's a long winded way to say that. There's just a lot of teams that are right there in that vicinity. RPI wise, the weekend didn't help Arkansas a whole lot. I think they're up to 26 in RPI.
I guess if anything, the good news there is that by OU winning a game Bubba in Fayetteville is that OU is going to stay a Quad one win. So they've got the quad one stat going for them still.
But they got to finish strong. They got to win the series at Kentucky and I feel like they got to do a lot at the SEC tournament to even give them a shot at being a host.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Do you feel like we've got to sweep Kentucky?
[00:29:51] Speaker A: I think it would be good to sweep Kentucky to get back one of these games. Whether that's, you know, one of those games that's gotten away, I think that, you know, if you sweep Kentucky, you feel like maybe you got one of those games back. No different than sweeping Alabama. You felt like you got a game or two back from that have gotten away from you.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Do you think we can sweep Kentucky at Kentucky? They play better at home than they typically have.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: They are a desperate team. And you know, the one thing about Kentucky, I'm going to look this up here real quick. I don't think they've been swept this year. Like that's why they continue to kind of be in the conversation, you know, because their record's not great.
But they're 12 and 15 in the SEC and I think they've the series wins that stick out to me for Kentucky and is they swept Alabama and I think they swept 10 or they didn't sweep Tennessee, but they won two of three at Tennessee a couple of weeks back. But they're competitive, you know, like Florida. Kentucky had Florida down the other day six to one and Florida came back and beat them.
So they're an off late. They're a pesky team.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: And you get them on their, you know, I was almost gonna say it's carpet. I was gonna say, so get them on their carpet. And you know, they kind of get to.
I think they're going to be a lot more aggressive on the bases than OU was. OU was not aggressive on the Bases at all for the first two days. And then they got more aggressive yesterday. But I feel like Kentucky's going to be a lot more aggressive than what we saw from Oklahoma. I just think that it's. And they're desperate, like they're fighting for their tournament life. I think it's going to be very hard to sweep them in Lexington.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I look at our team, though. Look how much speed we have.
We've got a ton of team speed, too. So you put us on turf.
We're a pretty good team on turf, too. We can steal bases.
I think we got Rider Helfrich.
I think the score was part of the ou, not stealing. There really wasn't like that many opportunities yesterday. They got a lead, then they started taking advantage of it.
Thought our pitchers did a good job for the most part, you know, holding runners on lefties. It's harder to steal against, but, yeah, I think it'd be different going into Kentucky.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Here's Kentucky at home this year. They've swept Alabama, and I'm talking about an SEC play. They swept Alabama. They lost a series to Missouri in Lexington, and that was the only SEC series win for Missouri until, you know, what happened over the weekend with Vanderbilt. Kentucky lost 2 of 3 to Vanderbilt in Lexington, and they lost 2 of 3 to South Carolina in Lexington. So they're not a, you know, they're not like a world beater at home. But again, I still think that, you know, this is like their last chance. This is their last home series.
They're going to be going through a lot of the same emotions Arkansas was going through the other day, where you got guys playing their last series at home, and, you know, they're right there on the very fringe of being an NCAA tournament team.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: But if you lose two or three at home, South Carolina, that's a bad law.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Well, then they lost two of three. South Carolina and Missouri.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: And Missouri.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: So Missouri and South. Like, I think it's a very winnable series for Arkansas to go into Lexington. But we're talking about, can Arkansas sweep? Well, I think. I think that's. I think that's a tough one.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: If they lost two series, two out of three to both those teams, we can sweep them.
But, you know, it's in the sec. You know, it's. It's not the best team. It's who's playing the best. It's a lot of time. It's when you're catching a team. Are we catching Kentucky? Are they hot? Are they gonna be hot going in this weekend?
I feel like, we're playing really good baseball right now.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: I gotta correct myself. South Carolina was in South Carolina.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:33:31] Speaker A: Tennessee went to Lexington and Tennessee lost two of three at Kentucky. I got those two mixes up.
We'll see. I mean, it's.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: That makes a difference there. But still, I don't know.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Missouri went in there and won. Like, if Missouri goes in there and wins, like, that's. To me, that's telling. No different than Vanderbilt going to Missouri. And I know they had that whole, you know, issue with the baseball that got lost and they couldn't find it in the fog while they were even playing at that point. I don't know. But like, Vanderbilt, if you wanted any chance of getting into the NCAA tournament, don't go to Missouri and lose a series. Like, I just. I feel like that's. You can't overcome that.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a tough one to overcome.
The home. Home run thing, you brought up trackman data. If you go off a trackman data, that was a home run.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: I mean, do you trust trackman that much?
[00:34:23] Speaker B: I mean, for the most part, yeah. I think where Trackman. Where Trackman misses it are on real windy days.
Like, if a wind's blowing in, I can't remember who it was. My man, Damian Reese or new hit a ball to right field and they had it going like 350something, which would have put it up on Dave's office, and it got caught.
Trackman can't calculate the wind, but, you know, with fog there, I would assume when it's foggy, it's typically not windy. So I would assume there was no wind. So to me, I trust Trackman that that was a home run.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Somebody sent me a text the other day talking about they've seen where Trackman has problems, you know, in weather, you know, I guess like rain. So I don't know fog. How that, you know, equates to rain with Trackman, I don't know. But like, somebody went and found the baseball over the fence. I don't think there was any question that the ball went over the fence. The question was, did it. Was it a home run over the fence or was it a ground rule double?
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Yeah, okay.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Like the Vanderbilt fan finding the ball over the fence. Like, I don't know that that was like this big revelation. I know it was a home run,
[00:35:29] Speaker B: but it was a Vandy fan.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: That's where it went.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: How many Vandy fans are on the other side of the Missouri fence
[00:35:38] Speaker A: at that fence?
[00:35:39] Speaker B: I mean, doesn't that seem kind of odd?
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Well, I Think it was like the next day they went and found it.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Oh, is it?
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's like you're like maybe like that night or the next morning because there's no, like there's nobody sitting there.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Missouri, I think. What is that there? I think it's their football indoor facility that backs up to that right field fence.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: So I don't know, but we probably spent too much time talking about Vanderbilt, Missouri. Yeah, that was, that was the big controversy of the weekend in college baseball. Right?
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Yeah, but I just, I keep looking, looking at the standings and it's just I see us at 15 and 12. We should be 16 and 11 or 17 and 10.
You know, I just feel like those have gotten away from us and maybe we've won a game or two we shouldn't have won. You know, maybe, you know, but it's tough. That's life in the sec.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: So here's the SEC standings. Georgia, by the way, won the SEC over the weekend. They got a huge lead right now. Like they're four and a half games ahead of the next closest teams, which is Texas and Texas A and M. And A and M has kind of fallen off a lot here the last couple of weeks.
Texas even to a certain extent has two. They lost a two of three to Tennessee the other day over the weekend in Knoxville. But Georgia's number one, Texas. Texas A and M were tied at 16 and 10. And then you got Auburn and Alabama who are tied at 16 and 11. And if the season were to end right now, Bubba, Alabama would be the number four seed because they swept Auburn earlier this year. What happened though, by Arkansas losing to Oklahoma yesterday? Arkansas would have been right there with them at 16 and 11. And then you do this thing where you go, okay, what was the head to head record between all three of those teams against each other?
It'd be Arkansas 4 and 2, Alabama would be 3 and 3 and Auburn would be 2 and 4. So Arkansas would be the fourth seed as of right now, had they won that game against Oklahoma.
Doesn't mean that they'd be the fourth seed in the tournament. But you're talking about if you're a top four seed, you don't have to play until either Thursday or Friday.
They still haven't fixed the schedule in Hoover. It's still totally just. I don't understand what they're doing with the SEC tournament because now it's on Thursday you have two games and on Friday you have two games. Instead of just having the top four seeds all play on the same day, right? It's. It's really weird the way they do that. So, like, you know, Arkansas was really fortunate last year where whatever, they finished in the sec, Were they two or three? I don't know. But they played on Friday.
But like, two of the other top four seeds had played on Thursday.
So it just, it just does not make sense to me what they do with the SEC tournament, the way they schedule this thing. I think the SEC tournament is a gigantic waste of time.
This is just my opinion here. It's a gigantic waste of time. It. I don't think. I think the coaches actually, and the teams actually like going down there, but I don't think anybody likes what it does to you potentially the next week at the regional, especially if you guys start playing like four or five games down there. And that's why they got rid of that whole single elimination, then double elimination, then back to single elimination thing. So I guess the fact that it's all single elimination now, that makes it a little bit better. But all that. Say, if Arkansas was the top four seed right now, they would be playing on Thursday or Friday.
And where they are right now is a five through an eight, and they're tied for sixth with Florida and Mississippi State. And it's too early to say how the tiebreaker would work for those three teams. Because Florida and Mississippi State didn't play each other, they'd have to play on Wednesday. I feel like that's a big deal in Hoover, because I feel like if you go to Hoover, you don't want to play more than three games, right? Maybe you only play one game, maybe you lose like Arkansas did last year at Ole Miss, but you don't want to play more than three.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Well, what I don't want to do is go there on Wednesday.
If we go on a Thursday, Deets can throw, you know, Dietz can pitch game one.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: We hope it's Thursday this week, most likely against Kentucky. So I guess theoretically he could pitch Wednesday on six days rest. But then you're pitching him on short rest back to back weeks.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Right. And would Dave do that? I mean, I guess it all comes down to how bad we need a win.
But boy, if we. That's why you look back at, you know, you look back at Mizzou and South Carolina and yesterday and you're like, gosh, just get one of those. One of those wins. Two would be great. But I mean, so you look at the matchups this weekend of the teams that are in front of us.
You've got, like, Alabama and Auburn. Who. You know, who. Who do they play?
[00:40:12] Speaker A: You got Ole Miss.
Auburn hosts Georgia. Now, what's Georgia like? What's Georgia's motivation this week when they've already wrapped up the SEC title?
I don't know. You know, I'm not saying, but Auburn's really good. Auburn's a really good team. I thought the fact that Auburn went into Starkville and got beat up like they did in game one, and then they came back and they won the last two, like, that really stood out to me, the fact that they won that series in Starkville. I think Auburn's a lot better than some people probably give them credit for. But, yeah, here are the series really to watch this weekend. And I guess everything matters. But. But these are the ones, you know, based on those teams who are in Arkansas's kind of range because Ole Miss isn't far behind Arkansas. They're a game back.
They go to Alabama, Georgia is at Auburn, Florida's at lsu. That's a really interesting series on a lot of fronts because you got lsu, they're kind of playing for their lives, too, when it comes to the NCAA post season.
And then Mississippi State goes to Texas A and M. A and M, you know, trying to.
They're not going to win the sec, obviously, because Georgia's already done it, but they're trying to be a top four seed. They're trying to stay in that conversation, you know, maybe be a top eight national seed and get home field advantage in the playoffs. So there's a lot of competitive series this weekend. I guess that shouldn't be too much of a surprise because it is the sec.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: Well, so we need. I mean, you look at the teams we need to lose, you know, we need Auburn to lose. We need Mississippi State to lose.
[00:41:46] Speaker A: You need A and M to beat Mississippi State. Yeah, you need Georgia to beat Auburn.
And it wouldn't hurt like the. The Ole Miss. Alabama one's kind of weird because you don't want Ole Miss to win too many and catch you. Yeah, but you need Alabama maybe to lose some in front of you. So that was kind of like kind of a wash. Need somebody not to get swept right there if you're arc.
And then obviously if you're Arkansas, you got to win games.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Kentucky, I mean, I, I don't know, I just feel good about it. I. I feel good about the way, you know, I watched the guys in BP and watched them yesterday in the dugout over the whole weekend, and, and I like the team. And, and I'll tell you, you know, this is, it's not baseball related, but it kind of is.
You were probably doing interviews after the game, but after the game, the moms all had their.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: I was down on the field because I was talking to Skip Johnson yesterday. So I saw all of this.
[00:42:36] Speaker B: Oh, I just sit there and watch the moms come out on the field and the families and, you know, it wasn't, what really stood out to me was it wasn't like just the mom and their kid. It was like everyone else was hugging everyone else's moms. Like the players were hugging. You know, that tells me that it's a close knit team and they, all the parents get along. They, the players are all respected by the other parents. And it's just, I thought it was really cool. To me, it kind of stood out of, you know, it wasn't just that mom and that family together. Everyone was out there together taking pictures and you could see, you know, players pulling each other over there and taking pictures with someone else's mom and family. And I just thought that tells you a lot about the culture of this team. And just the, you know, this, the chemistry of this team and that goes a long way. I mean, gets overlooked just having quality individual and team. I look at Lachance for OU and that guy is, I don't know how I can say it nicely on here, a turd.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: When we run camps, if there's a kid that doesn't listen, it's not coachable. We call him Camp Turds. Not politically correct, but I tell you what, it fixes his attitude.
It might be the best thing we can do for him.
His name should be letterd, not Lachance. Did you see some of the antics?
[00:44:00] Speaker A: I guess.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, Matt, I don't know how you missed it. Some of the stuff he was doing at the plate in the field was just unbelievable. We don't have players like that. Like, I love our dudes, I love, I love our guys.
They all get along and, and I don't know, to me, that stood out. It says a lot about the chemistry on the team and the kind of dudes we have.
And you gotta have those kind of guys. When it gets late in the year, guys are tired, fatigue. Boy, you get a team that's close knit and sticks together, could play a long time.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: I start watching my games with the binoculars like you do. You see?
[00:44:34] Speaker B: I do.
[00:44:35] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: I watched the picture like I, I, There were a couple guys tipping pitches Yesterday and I love picking that up. And yeah, I mean it's, it's something. By the time I figure it out, it's too late to go to the coaching staff and say, oh, hey, so and so is doing. But yeah, there were guys tipping pitches, so I love looking at it and it's hard to see like I picture from the batter's box. What can you see from the batter's box? And so I'm looking through the binoculars to try to get that same view.
[00:45:05] Speaker A: Eddie, I want to mention one thing real quick. Arkansas scored 34 runs this weekend. I think that's the most runs they've had in an SEC series all year. And that kind of stands out because they had 22 in one game against South Carolina.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And think, think about the staff they scored him off of. This is a frustrating staff to face.
Look at some of the opponent batting average against like there's some low.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Cameron Johnson, a very low opponent batting average.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: There's several of those dudes.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: That running out Sunday guy, they ran Cord Raker yesterday, he looks like he's going to be really good.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: He's going to be a stud. He's freshman. He's going to be a stud.
But they're wild and so it's easier to face a guy like as a hitter, it's easier to face a guy that throws a lot of strikes. If I know you're around the zone, then it's easy for me. I pick a zone, I stay with it and eventually you're gonna throw a pitch in that zone. But when you're wild like that, it is so hard. So I was so proud of our hitters for going up there and battling. You know, we talked about the seven pitch home runs, a lot of two strike hits.
The, the big inning we had, we didn't hit a single home run, but we strung a whole bunch of singles and doubles together, which is hard to do in the sec. But I just thought our approach was great against a team that's really frustrating to hit because those guys aren't fun to face. They're really not because they're, you know, they might throw two at your head and then they might paint three away. I mean, you just don't know.
So I thought our hitters did a really good job of scoring a lot of runs against a staff that's hard to score against.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: They won the series, you know, and I think that's, that's the thing. It's like again, I go back to what I said off the top, top like it's, it's really easy to forget they won the series when game three was, was as frustrating as it did. But I think, you know, if you, if, if you were to poll people say on Thursday of last week, hey, you know, what's the number one thing you want to come out of the weekend with? They would say a series win. Two, one series win. They'd love to sweep, but they got the series win. And you know, they've, they've put themselves, they've kept themselves, I guess, in contention for all the things they want.
Top four seed in Hoover, maybe a regional. Although I think that's a little bit of a reach, a home regional. I mean, you know, but if nothing else, you've kept yourself in that conversation from a regional perspective that, you know, maybe if you match up in the right quadrant, you get to go somewhere close or if nothing else, you get to play, you know, one of the 13 through 16 teams as opposed to somebody who's like five through eight. And so they've, they've certainly kept themselves in that conversation. Bubba will be back in here on Thursday. We'll have a little bit deeper look at Kentucky before then. Kentucky actually plays a midweek game this week, which is kind of interesting. Not very many teams play midweeks anymore on this last week of the regular season, but they're going to play Northern Kentucky tomorrow night in Lexington. So maybe we'll watch that game and we'll know a little bit more about Kentucky when we come in here on Thursday.
[00:47:57] Speaker B: Again, can I say one more thing, though?
Go back and if you think about, you know, DVH talks about the value of every pitch. And when I'm talking to my teams, whether it be my son's 14 year team or my high school showcase team, it's the value of every pitch, every 90ft, every pitch. When you're a pitcher, when you're at the plate. I go back and I think about the O2 pitch where Fisher hit the lefty with two strikes. The home run, the walk and the home run before that, okay, it's, it happened. But that pitch right there is the one that stands out to me. If Fisher makes a pitch right there or just gets the guy out, I think he had, he was dominating the guy. All he had to do is just make a pitch right there. You look at that one pitch and I think if that doesn't happen, and I'm not putting it on Fisher, by no means, I'm just saying that's a, that's one pitch in the game that you. If. If it were different, I think we sweep the team. That's how close it was. And so that's why I'm not like, there's a lot of people all doom and gloom, Matt. I'm not. I'm like, still, like, feeling good now,
[00:49:05] Speaker A: on the flip side, that's where that O2 stat can get a little misleading, because that's just talking about hits. It's not talking about, you know, hit batters.
[00:49:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Walks, things like that. And all those. Those add up, too. And they added up in that game yesterday.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And we've hit some guys. Oh, too. We have made some O2 mistakes.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Seems like they've hit a lot of. A lot of. A lot of O2 hit batters this year. More than I can remember in some of the past years, I think.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: So I think Gibler's hit a couple. I mean, I don't want to. I don't want to say it. I'm not sure, but I feel like Gibler and Fisher have hit a couple. But I mean, it. It happens. But, boy, you don't want it to.
But anyway, I just wanted to get that point across, is that, man, it's just one pitch and we're talking about something different.
But then you can also look at, say, the one error by them on Saturday. Maybe we don't score all those runs in eight.
[00:49:52] Speaker A: There were a couple of plays where they're middle infielders, too. That weren't error, but they made a huge, huge difference in that game. And that's a good middle infield, too. Their shortstop and their second baseman. Bubba. Appreciate you being in here. We'll be back with another show tomorrow. We'll talk Razorback softball. They are a national seed at the NCAA softball tournament that begins this weekend over at Bogle Park. Hope to see you then. Or at our website, wholehogsports.com.
