FAYETTEVILLE - Many won’t remember much about Ryne Stanek’s first victory of the season in Arkansas’ home opener Feb. 15.
They’ll remember his second home victory.
Stanek pitched 62/3 shutout innings and won his first game at Baum Stadium since the season-opener as Arkansas beat LSU 8-3 on Saturday in front of a season-high crowd of 9,884, the eighth-largest crowd in stadium history.
“It does kind of feel like it’s been a while, but I just try to go out there and do my job every day,” said Stanek (4-2), who has gone 142/3 consecutive innings without allowing a run but had not lasted more than 42/3 innings in any home start this season before Saturday. “I just tried to go out there and do my job and make pitches and don’t really think about anything else.”
Arkansas’ offense had plenty of think about as it roughed up LSU right-hander Ryan Eades for a season-high five runs in four innings and snapped a 15-game winning streak by LSU, which is ranked No. 1 by Collegiate Baseball. It was Eades’ first loss of the season.
Eades (7-1) went 4 innings, giving up a season-high 5 runs on 72 pitches. He allowed 8 hits, the most since giving up 9 at Missouri on March 30, walked 3 and struck out 5.
Arkansas outhit LSU 12-7.
“I’ve been in this game a long time, and you’re going to have nights like this,” LSU Coach Paul Mainieri said. “This is just what happens. It’s a tough game to play. It’s a very humbling game, and tonight wasn’t our night.”
Eades was relieved after giving up back-to-back singles to Brian Anderson and Dominic Ficociello to start the fifth, but by then the damage had been done.
Just as LSU (33-3, 12-2 SEC) took the lead for good on a three-run home run midway through Friday’s 6-2 victory, Arkansas (25-11, 9-5) used a three-run home run to take a lead in the fourth inning Saturday. After Anderson walked and Ficociello singled down the right-field line, Jake Wise hit a line-drive home run over the left-field wall.
It was the first home run off Eades and Wise’s second of the season. He hit his first on Feb. 22 against Evansville.
“We were just being aggressive,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. “I just think we did a good job. It was good to see. It was fun to see our guys … we swung with a lot of confidence.
“[Eades] only had like nine runs all year that he had given up, and his ERA was under 2.00 and he’s 7-0. We knew we had our hands full, but we kind of knew that we really needed a win and they played great.”
Arkansas’ lead off man reached base in six of the first seven innings after failing to have its lead off man get on base Friday night.
Eades struck out Willie Schwanke for the second out in the fourth inning, but Arkansas pushed its lead to 4-0 on consecutive singles by Brett McAfee, Jacob Mahan and Tyler Spoon.
Wise had his fourth RBI in the fifth inning when a sacrifice fly scored Anderson and made it 5-0.
“Ryan has had such a great year and has been perfect really, and today he just wasn’t his typical self and that happens in this sport,” Mainieri said.“Tip your hat to Arkansas. They have great players and you know they’re eventually going to bust out.”
LSU’s best chance to score off Stanek came in the second inning. Mason Katz led off with a walk and an out later JaCoby Jones singled to left. Katz, however, tried to make it to third on the Jones’ single and was thrown out at third by Anderson.
Arkansas pushed its lead to 8-0 in the seventh off Will LaMarche, who walked three and hit a batter. The key hit in the inning was a two-run double from Mahan off Nate Fury, who relieved LaMarche with one out in the seventh.
LSU avoided its first shutout of the season with three runs off Arkansas reliever Landon Simpson in the ninth when Chris Sciambra hit a two-run single and Chris Chinea scored on a wild pitch.
Ficociello was 3 for 3 for Arkansas.
Mason Katz was 1 for 3 to extend his hitting streak to 16 games for LSU.
Today’s game LSU AT ARKANSAS WHEN 1:05 p.m.
WHERE Baum Stadium, Fayetteville RECORDS LSU 33-3, 12-2 SEC; Arkansas 25-11, 9-5 SEC RADIO Razorback Sports Network, which includes KABZ-FM, 103.7, Little Rock;
KQSM-FM, 92.1, Fayetteville; KURMAM, 790, Bentonville-Rogers; KASRFM, 92.7, Conway; KHGG-FM, 103.1, Fort Smith; KELD-FM, 106.5, El Dorado;
KOMT-FM, 107.5, Mountain Home. Not all games will be carried by affiliates.
Check local listings.
INTERNET www.arkansasrazorbacks.
com PITCHING MATCHUP LSU:Cody Glen (LP, 5-1, 3.12 ERA); Arkansas: Randall Fant (LHP, 2-1, 1.71).
SHORT HOPS Arkansas’ Jake Wise drove in a career-high four runs Saturday in the Razorbacks’ 8-3 victory. … Arkansas pitcher Ryne Stanek lowered his ERA to 0.56 in conference play.
THE WEEK AHEAD TODAY vs. LSU, 1:05 p.m.
MONDAY off TUESDAY at Nebraska, 6:35 p.m.
WEDNESDAY at Nebraska, 1:35 p.m.
THURSDAY off FRIDAY vs. Texas A&M, 6:35 p.m.
SATURDAY vs. Texas A&M, 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY’S GAMES Mississippi St. 9, Texas A&M 3 Tennessee 10, Kentucky 9 Florida 14, South Carolina 5 Georgia 7, Auburn 1 Vanderbilt 12, Missouri 1 Ole Miss 5, Alabama 2 Arkansas 8, LSU 3
Sports, Pages 25 on 04/14/2013