This week in Arkansas baseball: Delayed predictions, previewing Gonzaga, short porch and more – WholeHogSports

FAYETTEVILLE When the doctor tells you to shut it down, you listen.

That was my order last week, one day before opening day of the 2020 season. I was sick and the doctors orders were to stay home for at least four days.

For the first time since I began covering the team 12 seasons ago, I found myself away from Baum-Walker Stadium as the season began. It was an odd feeling.

Before getting sick I spent quite some time on a preseason observations piece. In it were some predictions that I felt were validated on opening weekend, but were never published.

Here were the predictions (written before the games, I promise):

Arkansas will hit at least 77 home runs during the regular season, including at least 20 by Heston Kjerstad. Whether the Razorbacks challenge the school record of 98 set two years ago will depend on how many games they play in the postseason, but this team has as much power as any in memory. Kjerstad appears primed for a big year at the plate, similar to when Andrew Benintendi and Chad Spanberger had 20-homer seasons in 2015 and 2017, respectively.

Anyone who saw Kjerstad bat in the preseason will tell you that his performance against EIU came as no surprise. He has been tearing it up at the plate for quite some time, dating to last summer with the USA Collegiate National Team. During preseason scrimmages he was a near-impossible out for the Razorbacks younger pitchers.

A consensus first-team All-American in the preseason, Kjerstad appears to be in line to contend for conference - and possibly national - player of the year honors, and big power numbers will always help the cause.

Kjerstad should lead the team in homers, but several Razorbacks have the capability to hit several this year. It would not surprise to see Casey Martin, Christian Franklin, Braydon Webb or Matt Goodheart finish with double-digit homers. Franklin, Webb and Goodheart all homered on opening weekend, and Arkansas has seven home runs through three games.

The Razorbacks will score at least 25 runs on opening weekend. This actually feels like a low projection given how Arkansas lineup batted against Razorback pitching in scrimmages during the preseason, but the first games can be a struggle, especially in cold weather. Its worth noting that against EIU last season, Arkansas scored 30 runs in three games, 27 of which came during an opening-day doubleheader.

Arkansas scored 27 runs against EIU. With 30 runners stranded in three games, the potential was there to put a lot more on the board, but its hard to scoff at an average of nine runs per game at this point in the season and in cold weather.

Two pitchers will record at least five saves as the Razorbacks take a by-committee approach to replace departed closer Matt Cronin. The most likely candidates to lead the team in saves are junior right hander Zebulon Vermillion and sophomore right hander Elijah Trest, although Dave Van Horn mentioned redshirt junior right hander Kevin Kopps as a potential closer. Vermillions status for opening weekend is iffy as he recovers from a lingering hamstring injury.

Probably in part due to the cold, Vermillion didnt pitch against EIU. Because of the lopsided scores, no pitcher had a chance at a save.

But the series did provide a look at some of the options at the back end. Kopps (Game 1) and Trest (Game 3) each pitched a scoreless ninth, while Peyton Pallette allowed a run on two hits in the final inning of the middle game of the series.

Trest looked the most impressive of the three with an eight-pitch outing to retire the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 hitters in the EIU lineup. Trests outing reminded some of Cronin with seven fastballs registered at either 95 or 96 mph, and only one outside the strike zone.

Strikeouts will decrease from last season when the Razorbacks set a school record with 581, or an average of 8.8 per game. Look for Arkansas per-game walk total to slightly increase from 4.9 per game last season.

The Razorbacks struck out 20 times against EIU, with seven coming in the season opener against power right hander Will Klein. Arkansas walked 18 times in the series.

Dave Van Horn said he wants to see the strikeout total decrease this weekend against Gonzaga, and that he was a little more pleased in that regard in the second and third games of the EIU series. Eight of the strikeouts came in the season opener.

As a power-hitting team, Arkansas strikeout totals, even if lower, are going to be higher than some can stomach.

Arkansas will break the tickets-sold record for an opening weekend. Poor weather Friday threatens this projection, but temperatures Saturday and Sunday are conducive for big crowds. Plus, a sold-out basketball crowd Saturday is likely to spill over to the baseball stadium. The record at Baum-Walker Stadium for opening-weekend tickets sold is 29,354 for the series against Miami (Ohio) in 2017. Arkansas has sold at least 7,018 season ticket packages this year, meaning an average walk-up crowd of around 2,800 per game would be enough to break the record for an opening weekend.

I was off by just a little. The Razorbacks sold 29,118 for the EIU series, good for second best in school history. It was also good for second most nationally on opening weekend, behind LSUs home series against Indiana.

On Gonzaga

The Bulldogs were the preseason pick to win the West Coast Conference. They have won the conference tournament two of the past four seasons.

Gonzaga comes into the series with a 2-2 record following an opening-weekend event in Surprise, Ariz., where the Bulldogs split two games with Oregon State, defeated New Mexico with a ninth-inning rally and lost to BYU.

Sixteenth-year Gonzaga coach Mark Machtolf has had some success against Arkansas, with a 4-2 record. In 2013, now-Seattle Mariners pitcher Marco Gonzales pitched a complete game in a 3-0 victory over the Razorbacks in Surprise, Ariz.

In 2015, Gonzaga swept two midweek games from an Arkansas team that wound up in the College World Series. The Bulldogs also won a game during a midweek series that was cut short in 2016. All three of those games were played in Fayetteville.

As an extended weekend series, the teams will approach this weeks games differently, throwing their best pitchers.

For Gonzaga, the best pitcher is junior right hander Alek Jacob, who is expected to start Game 3 opposite of Arkansas Patrick Wicklander. Jacob was on a pair of preseason All-America teams.

Against Oregon State last week, Jacob allowed 3 runs on 5 hits and 4 walks, and struck out 6 in 4 innings.

Similar to Will Klein of EIU last week, Jacob is transitioning back into being a starter full-time. He made only four starts last season when he recorded 12 saves. He was a starter as a freshman.

Jacob will not wow with velocity, but is effective by pitching from a low angle that can make the ball difficult to see out of his hand. In his first start of the year his fastball registered in the mid 80s. He also throws a changeup and a breaking ball.

Keaton Knueppel, a redshirt junior left hander, is scheduled to start Thursday for the Zags. Knueppel has pitched in just six college games and is making his first appearance since undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Senior left hander Mac Lardner is scheduled to start Friday. Lardner was 6-4 with a 5.06 ERA a year ago. In his first start this year he struck out 9, allowed 1 hit and walked 2 in 6 innings against BYU.

Nick Trogrlic-Iverson, a senior right hander, is scheduled to throw Sunday. He was 4-3 with a 5.05 ERA last year, and allowed 2 runs on 7 hits and struck out 6 batters in 4 innings against Oregon State last week.

Jack Machtolf, a redshirt junior outfielder who is the son of the head coach, was 4-for-11 and drew 4 walks on the first weekend. Senior outfielder Ryan Sullivan also had a solid weekend at the plate with a 5-for-12 performance that included a home run, a triple and a double.

First pitch for the first game of the series has been moved up by one hour to 2 p.m. Like last weeks season opener, the change was made because of cold temperatures in the forecast. The high Friday is 41 degrees, but the temperature will fall throughout the game as the sun sets behind the stadium, casting shadows across the park.

The final three game times remain unchanged for now, but dont be surprised to see a doubleheader scheduled for either Friday or Saturday because of a poor forecast Sunday that includes a 70 percent chance of rain.

Noland Dominant

Arkansas Game 1 pitching has been superb since 2017.

Fans remember the all-time great seasons recorded by Blaine Knight in 2018 and Isaiah Campbell last year, but it seems some forget how good Trevor Stephan was in 2017 when he went 6-3 with a 2.87 ERA and 120 strikeouts in 91 innings while pitching primarily out of the No. 1 position.

Over the past three years, Arkansas record in SEC openers was 23-7 behind the pitching of Stephan, Knight and Campbell. That does not take into consideration nonconference or postseason play, when all three pitched well. All three were taken in the first three rounds of the MLB Draft.

Perhaps the biggest question mark coming into 2020 was whether the Razorbacks could develop another ace who could pitch comparable to those departed stars. Starters returned, but Connor Noland and Patrick Wicklander are sophomores, whereas Knight and Stephan were juniors and Campbell was a fourth-year junior during their banner years.

Being careful to draw too many conclusions from one performance against an overmatched opponent, it appears Noland might have the stuff to be a suitable replacement to Campbell.

Noland looked great in the season opener when he allowed 1 unearned run on 2 hits and 1 walk in 6 2/3 innings. The sophomore right hander struck out a career-high 11, the second double-digit strikeout performance of his career, but likely not the last.

Noland is only the sixth Arkansas pitcher to record 11 strikeouts in a single game in the past 10 seasons. The others? Stephan, Knight, Campbell, Kacey Murphy and Cody Scroggins.

After spending an offseason focused on baseball for the first time, Noland showed a three-pitch arsenal of fastball, curveball, slider that had improved velocity and command. EIU coach Jason Anderson, a long-time minor league hitter, said Nolands slider was probably the best his team will see this season.

Noland faced the minimum through six innings and allowed a run only because of an error by shortstop Casey Martin. For an outing with so many strikeouts, his average of 4.3 pitches per out seemed especially efficient.

Noland seems real comfortable pitching at Baum-Walker Stadium, even dating to high school when as a senior he struck out 12 to lead Greenwood to a state championship. His best performances last year came at home against Mississippi State and Tennessee during back-to-back weeks in April.

Can he take that kind of performance on the road like his predecessors did before him? With Wicklander struggling some with command and a third starter undetermined, Arkansas needs Noland to anchor the weekend with a strong performance in Game 1.

To stay on a seven-day rest schedule, Noland will pitch the second game against Gonzaga this weekend, then is likely to pitch the first game the following weekend, against Oklahoma in Houston.

Shorter Porch

The construction of the new $27 million baseball performance center beyond the right field wall at Baum-Walker Stadium might have contributed to at least one home run on opening weekend.

Braydon Webbs leadoff homer in the first inning of the Razorbacks 10-1 victory on Saturday just cleared the fence in the right field corner. The ball appeared to be drifting foul, but a strong wind pushed it back into play just inside the foul pole.

The fence in the right field corner was moved in 8 feet this year because of the construction. The foul pole in right is now 312 feet from home plate.

Webbs home run might have been a double off the top of the wall a year ago when the fence sat at 320 feet. It will be interesting to see how many home runs sneak over that wall throughout the rest of the season.

At 312 feet, Arkansas has the second-shortest right-field porch in the Southeastern Conference. Mississippi State moved its right field fence to 305 feet as part of the renovation to Dudy Noble Field last year.

For years, Georgias Foley Field had the leagues shortest porch in right at 314 feet.

There is no word whether Arkansas will readjust the fence in right once construction is complete. Seven years ago the right-center field fence at the stadium was brought in 10 feet to 365.

Here is a look at the right-field dimensions at all of the SEC stadiums:

Alabama: Sewell-Thomas Stadium 320

Arkansas: Baum-Walker Stadium 312

Auburn: Plainsman Park 320

Florida: McKethan Stadium 321

Georgia: Foley Field 314

Kentucky: Kentucky Proud Park 320

LSU: Alex Box Stadium 330

Ole Miss: Swayze Field 330

Mississippi State: Dudy Noble Field 305

Missouri: Taylor Stadium 340

South Carolina: Founders Park 325

Tennessee: Lindsey Nelson Stadium 320

Texas A&M: Blue Bell Park 330

Vanderbilt: Hawkins Field 330

Odds and Ends

Arkansas has two players on the roster who have 6 RBI games in their career. Kjerstad achieved the feat before being taken out of the game early Sunday. Jacob Nesbit had a 6-RBI game last year against Tennessee.

Eight Razorbacks pitched at least one inning against EIU without allowing an earned run.

The middle infield will be fun to watch this season. Casey Martin at shortstop and Robert Moore at second base both are extremely quick and rangy. Martin misplayed a ground ball in the season opener but his defense in the preseason looked improved. Moore has a chance to be a special defender up the middle.

It doesnt appear Arkansas will run quite as much this season. The Razorbacks only attempted three stolen bases against EIU, compared to eight stolen-base attempts in the first series against EIU a year ago. Casey Martin and Christian Franklin were successful in their steal attempts, while Casey Opitz was caught.

Signage has been replaced across the ballpark to reflect the name change last year to Baum-Walker Stadium. The most notable change is atop the video board in right-center field, where the old Baum Stadium sign remained intact throughout the 2019 season. That sign now says Baum-Walker is a style consistent with the old one.

Former Razorback pitcher Kacey Murphy is coaching in the bullpen this season. Murphy was a starter on Arkansas national runner-up team in 2018. He replaces Doug Willey, who began working as a minor-league coach for the Chicago Cubs late last year.

The right field fence isnt the only thing that has been moved at the ballpark due to construction. The flag pole and a light pole were also repositioned. The flag pole is now positioned near the left-field entrance.

Thanks to freshman catcher Dominic Tamez, Arkansas has had a player named Dominic on its roster for 10 seasons in a row. The streak began with infielder Dominic Ficociellos freshman season in 2011, and continued with pitcher Dominic Taccolini from 2014-17 and outfielder Dominic Fletcher from 2017-19.

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This week in Arkansas baseball: Delayed predictions, previewing Gonzaga, short porch and more - WholeHogSports