FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In case anybody in the SEC was wondering, Arkansas’ pitching is at least starting league play in a strong fashion. Saturday, Brady Tygart and Will McEntire shut out the Missouri Tigers, 6-0, for the second straight day and clinch the opening SEC series.
It was in typical fashion for the Razorbacks this year. But, first they had to figure out Missouri starter Javyn Pimental, who gave up just a single hit and four strikeouts until he ran out of gas. His relief help, Bryce Mayer, didn’t do as well.
Giving up three straight home runs in the sixth inning to Peyton Stovall, Wehiwa Aloy and Kendall Diggs was enough. The Hogs added three more and that was enough for the day. It was the second time in two years Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn has seen that from his team.
“That’s hard enough to do once,” he said later. “Now we’ve done it two years in a row. It’s really hard to do.”
Tygart struggled with his control in the top of the fourth and fifth innings. He walked the bases loaded with two outs in the fourth on full counts but got a line out to short to end the 31-pitch frame. After striking out the first two batters of the fifth, Tygart hit a batter and surrendered a full-count walk. McEntire came and went 4.2 innings while allowing a hit and four walks with seven strikeouts on 87 pitches (51 strikes). That was good enough to pick up the win.
It’s a combination the rest of the league is going to have to adjust to seeing. After seeing Hagen Smith, who had another dominant start Friday night, they are becoming a one-two punch that could be deadly.
After the trio of homers in the sixth, left-fielder Ross Lovich added a two-out, two-run triple to center and later scored on a wild pitch to cap off the six-run rally.
Lovich went 2-of-4 at the plate with two runs batted in and a triple. He was coming off hitting a three-run home run Friday night against Missouri in the bottom of the third in the 8-0 win.
The Hogs will try and finish a series sweep on Sunday, facing the Tigers again at 2 p.m. Sunday. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ and you can listen on ESPN Arkansas 95.3 in the River Valley, 96.3 in Hot Springs and 104.3 in Harrison-Mountain Home. The pregame show with Phil Elson and Bubba Carpenter starts at 1:30 p.m.
