FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas' top reliever got the better of the Razorbacks' No. 1 starter Friday at Baum Stadium.
Junior Jake Reindl pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings to lead his Gray team to a 3-0 win in Game 2 of the Cardinal and Gray series. The best-of-five series is tied 1-1.
Reindl was efficient on a 75-pitch limit. He allowed only two hits and didn't walk any batters. Opposing batters averaged only 3.5 pitches per at-bat against him.
"Jake kind of does what he does when he's on," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. "He's got tremendous movement and a lot of run on his fastball. He uses three different arm slots and he just pitches. He doesn't go out there thinking, 'I'm going to strike out X-amount of hitters,' he just wants to get outs.
"He had a couple of quick innings that allowed him to almost get six full innings in....I thought he looked extremely good."
Reindl mixed a low-90s fastball with a good changeup to induce 11 ground ball outs from the 20 batters he faced. Another ground ball was booted by second baseman Carson Shaddy, who was charged with an error to leadoff Reindl's final inning.
Reindl, the Razorbacks' top arm out of the bullpen and led the team with three saves a season ago, finished with two strikeouts and out-dueled Cardinal starter Blaine Knight, who allowed two runs during a 30-pitch first inning.
"Any time you get to pitch against Blaine it's fun because he's all that and he's going to go high in the draft," said Reindl, who was recruited in the same class as Knight. "It's kind of fun to compare yourself against him, for sure."
Knight pitched four innings on a 75-pitch limit and allowed 2 earned runs on 5 hits. He struck out three batters and walked two.
A lineup consisting most of left-handed or switch hitters had success against Knight during the prolonged first. Jared Gates, Heston Kjerstad and Ben McClain all singled, and Easton Murrell drew a walk with one out.
"The first four hitters of the game squared it up pretty good," Van Horn said. "I think they frustrated him and fouled off a lot of pitches. His 30 pitches included a double-play ball and if it wasn't for the double-play ball - he went four innings, but he might have only gone a couple.
"I was proud of Blaine for bouncing back....He's had a pretty good fall."
McClain's two-out bloop single over third baseman Casey Martin gave the Gray team a 2-0 first-inning lead. Jax Biggers doubled with one out in the second and scored on a throwing error by second baseman Hunter Wilson to cap the scoring.
"(McClain) had a pretty good at-bat," Van Horn said of the freshman outfielder from Lee's Summit, Mo. "He kind of got jammed and looped it over the third baseman and punched in a couple runs. At the time it looked like it would be the first of many, then both teams kind of settled down on the mound."
Sophomores Anthony Dahl and Matt Cronin combined to pitch 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief for the Gray team. Cronin also had the day's defensive highlight with an eighth-inning pickoff of Evan Lee at first base.
Freshman right-hander Kole Ramage struck out three in two scoreless innings for the Cardinal. Redshirt freshman left-hander Jackson Rutledge also pitched two scoreless innings out of the bullpen, but struggled with command and issued four walks.
The Razorbacks are scheduled to scrimmage again Sunday at 2 p.m. It will feature two freshmen - right-handers Bryce Bonnin (Cardinal) and Caleb Bolden (Gray) - who were drafted earlier this year.
The remaining scrimmages in the series will last seven innings.
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