FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas pitcher Isaiah Campbell will not travel with the team this week for games at Memphis and No. 4 Ole Miss.
Campbell, a redshirt sophomore right-hander, has inflammation in his throwing elbow, Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said Monday, and will need to take at least one week off from throwing. The hope is to have him back on the mound for a series against No. 11 Auburn in early April.
The news comes two days after Campbell's worst outing as a Razorback, when he allowed 6 runs - 5 earned - on 4 hits and 4 walks in a 3-out start Saturday at Florida. Van Horn said team doctors didn't learn about the inflammation until the following day.
"His elbow is just bugging him a little bit," Van Horn said. "So we had it looked at (as a) precautionary, so we're going to give him a week off."
It is the second elbow issue to plague Campbell the past two seasons. He pitched only once last year when it was discovered he had at least a dozen bone spurs.
Campbell (2-3) has been up and down this season, but the Florida start was his third disappointing one in four weekends and caused his ERA to spike to 3.33 in 27 innings. It came on the heels of his best collegiate start against Kentucky on March 17 when he struck out 8 batters and allowed 1 run in 8 innings.
"I haven't thrown well," Campbell said after the Kentucky game. "I didn't have a great outing against Kent State and I wanted to come out there first weekend of SEC and prove what I can do."
The No. 6 Razorbakcs will start Blaine Knight and Kacey Murphy on the mound at Ole Miss, although Murphy's start likely won't come until the third game of the series on Saturday to avoid a five-day turnaround from his Game 3 start at Florida. The Ole Miss series begins Thursday and ends Saturday.
Candidates to start the second game at Ole Miss are freshman right-handers Jackson Rutledge and Bryce Bonnin, and sophomore left-hander Matt Cronin.
"We just need one or two guys in that bullpen to step it up and then we could get Campbell back in a week or two, and if he comes back and pitches like we know he can it would be huge for us," Van Horn said. "We would be where we want to be now if we can get Campbell back in two weeks."
Van Horn said Arkansas will take an extra hitter, freshman Cole Turney, on the four-game trip this week in place of Campbell. He said redshirt junior pitcher Keaton McKinney will sit out for a sixth consecutive weekend after feeling discomfort in his surgically repaired elbow following a two-inning start against Bucknell on Feb. 18. McKinney was expected to throw an extended bullpen session Monday.
"He's getting close," Van Horn said. "We talked about him a lot on the way back yesterday. It sure would be nice to have that guy back with all that experience because you look at who we have, it's kind of like we have real young pitchers and guys with a lot of experience; there's not much in between."