Hogs’ Dave Van Horn needs ‘crazy day’ Monday to stay alive

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn has seen a lot of crazy things in baseball over the years and Monday he’s going to need another one to have a shot winning the Fayetteville Regional at Baum-Walker Stadium.

After having to play two games Sunday to stay alive, it didn’t start well at all. Okay, that’s a serious understatement in a whopping 20-5 loss to a streaking TCU team where Van Horn had to use more pitchers than he wanted when his best pitcher may have let a grand slam in the first inning get in his head. That meant they had to turn around and play Santa Clara.

Thank goodness for Brady Tygart. In his best start since an elbow injury threw 99 pitches over 5.2 innings and Will McEntire threw a solid 2.2 innings to set up Hunter Hollan for the final couple of outs and a 6-4 win.

The Hogs get to play on Monday … against the Horned Frogs again at 2 p.m. on ESPNU. You can also stream the game on ESPN+ or listen on the radio at ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs or 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home.

“It’s going to take a crazy day for us to win tomorrow,” Van Horn admitted late Sunday night after downing Santa Clara behind Kendall Diggs’ two-run homer that gave them a 6-3 lead when they really needed it. “Just glad we get to play another day.”

Exactly who will be on the mound right now is a complete guess ,.. and Van Horn is serious this time.

“Don’t know this time for sure,” Van Horn said after he admitted he often knows, but just doesn’t tell us in the media. Most of us suspected as much. “It’s not good.”

The only pitcher is Tygart, which is pretty reasonable. McEntire is probably on that list after showing up more often than some of the folks working the last three days.

“That’s up him,” McEntire said later, nodding in Van Horn’s direction after telling us he wanted to finish the game and felt better Sunday night than he did Friday when he had to bail out Hollan.

Van Horn does have to figure out who to put on the mound.

“I’ve got to put somebody out there,” he said.

First Game: TCU 20, Hogs 5

TCU’s Tre Richardson delivered more runs by himself than the Razorbacks did in the entire game and that pretty much summed up the game that was originally supposed to be played Saturday night, but pushed to Sunday because of weather delays.

Hagen Smith started on the mound and clearly had maybe the worst start since he’s been with the Hogs, giving up eight runs in facing just 11 batters and throwing 42 pitches lasting through a disastrous first inning into the second against two batters.

He gave up Richardison’s first homer (and first of two grand slams) for a 6-0 deficit. Tavian Josenberger led off the bottom of the inning with a homer. The Horned Frogs shrugged it off, struck out the next two batters and got a ground out.

The game was over for all intents and purposes right there. Smith started the second inning, gave up a pair of singles. Zack Morris came in and couldn’t do much better, giving up an immediate RBI single that loaded the bases and Richardson hit his second grand slam in back-to-back innings. At least the Hogs broke their momentum and held them to just five and an 11-1 lead.

The Hogs got another lead-off homer in the fifth, but by then the Horned Frogs had a 14-1 lead and making it 14-3 really didn’t mean much.

Arkansas got a solo homer from Bohrofen and another by Coll in the seventh but that wasn’t going to be enough as TCU added two runs in the sixth, a single run in the seventh and three in the ninth for the final margin.

That was just the Hogs’ fifth loss of the year at Baum-Walker Stadium, but sent them to the loser’s bracket to face Santa Clara after a couple of late lightning delays and the game finished after 6 p.m.

Second Game: Hogs 6, Santa Clara 4

The Hogs had to beat an experienced team and got off to a 2-0 start when Josenberger led off the game with a walk, then Jace Bohrofen delivered an RBI double and Ben McLaughlin drove him in with a sacrifice fly for a 2-0 lead.

Jared Wegner delivered a solo homer in the third inning and they added another in the fourth when Diggs led off getting on base on an error and scoring on Parker Rowland’s two-out single in the fourth.

Tygart developed his first trouble in the sixth when a hit was followed by a walk. A two-strike, two-out double down the left field line drove in both of those runners and that run scored on a throwing error on an infield grounder by McLaughlin that would have ended the inning. That made it 4-3 for the Hogs, but the Broncos had all the momentum.

Diggs followed up Coll’s single with a two-run homer on a low pitch he went down and drilled over the right-field wall for a 6-3 lead.

Santa Clara got a single run in the ninth before Hollan came in for McEntire and delivered the final two outs on a double play for the final margin and give the Hogs another day.