Analyst: Home success offsets road woes, has Hogs in position for top 8 seed

Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn watches from the dugout during a game against Southern Cal on Sunday, March 4, 2018, in Fayetteville.

— It doesn't just seem like it is harder for SEC baseball teams to win on the road this year.

It really is.

With two weeks remaining in the regular season, SEC teams have a combined home record of 308-99 - a .757 winning percentage.

That figure is nearly 10 points higher than last year when SEC teams were a combined 321-162-1 at home - a .663 percentage.

The .757 percentage would be the highest cumulative home record since the SEC expanded to 14 teams in 2013. The previous best was .689 in 2016.

Six SEC teams - Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Auburn, Texas A&M and Ole Miss - have won at least 80 percent of their home games, while a seventh team, LSU, has won 79 percent of its home games.

The worst home record in the league belongs to Tennessee (20-13), and the league is guaranteed to have no losing home records this year for only the second time since expansion.

That so many teams are winning so much at home means SEC teams are not performing as well on the road. Entering games this weekend, only Florida and Georgia have winning road records, and 42 of 56 SEC series have been won by the home team.

Florida has four of the 14 road series wins. No other team has more than two.

"There is a distinct home field advantage in all of the home venues in the Southeastern Conference," said Texas A&M coach Rob Childress, whose team is 25-6 at Blue Bell Park this season, but 7-7 in road games. "There are a lot of great fan bases and everything is comfortable - you're in your own bed, own locker room, in your own dugout, on your own mound, in a comfortable batter's box and all those things. The big thing is just being in your home stadium."

Arkansas is one of many SEC teams with drastically different results at home than on the road. The Razorbacks enter this weekend's series with Texas A&M 26-3 at Baum Stadium, compared to 5-11 in road games. The Razorbacks are 2-1 in neutral-site games, including a win over Grambling State last month at Dickey Stephens Park in North Little Rock.

The Razorbacks have not won a road series this season. They were 1-2 at Florida, Ole Miss and LSU, and were swept at Mississippi State. Arkansas also has road wins at San Diego State and Memphis, and road losses at San Diego and Charlotte.

Still, the latest postseason projections by D1Baseball.com and Baseball America have Arkansas safely as a top-eight national seed if the season ended today.

Why do the Razorbacks continue to be regarded in such high esteem? It is mostly because of their home schedule, which has included wins over several potential postseason teams - and some potential regional hosts - such as Texas Tech, Texas, Kent State, Missouri State, Auburn, South Carolina and Kentucky. Texas A&M also is a candidate to host.

"A lot of SEC teams, when they are in non-conference play, don't schedule as aggressively as Arkansas has this year," said Jeremy Mills, a college baseball researcher at ESPN Stats & Information. "Arkansas' non-conference strength of schedule is 65th, which is in line to slightly better than the other teams that are top 10 in the RPI. I think the fact that they were willing to schedule these teams - Texas Tech, a borderline national seed, and Texas, a borderline regional host - is definitely going to pull them in good stead with the committee, because they didn't just rely on the 30 SEC games for their résumé."

Since 1999, Mills said only one of 152 national seeds had a losing road record - Arkansas in 2004. The Razorbacks won a home regional and super regional that season and played in the College World Series.

The 2004 team won road series at LSU and Vanderbilt, and was 10-11 in road games. This year's team has one more chance to win a series on the road, at No. 15 Georgia next week.

"We need to do better on the road, obviously," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. "We have one more road series where we can prove ourselves against one of the best teams in the country."

But what if the Razorbacks don't win? Would they be put in line to host two rounds of NCAA postseason without winning a road series?

Arkansas' RPI is fifth, nationally, and the strength of schedule is sixth. Even with some losses, the Razorbacks could move up in both metrics with two series remaining against top 15 competition, plus the SEC Tournament.

"This would be a really interesting discussion for the NCAA Tournament room," said Mills, who noted selection committee's often look at a team's combined road and neutral-site records, meaning a run at the SEC Tournament later this month could help the Razorbacks' cause. "In previous years, there haven't been a whole lot of top 12 RPI teams that have losing road records. There weren't many teams that were able to compile such a high RPI while not winning at least a couple of road series."

Nothing is a given, but earning a top-eight seed would make Arkansas a favorite to reach the College World Series. Arkansas has the SEC's best home record and could tie or break a number of single-season records at Baum Stadium. Among them:

• Most regular-season wins, 28, in 2012. The Razorbacks would tie this record with a series win over Texas A&M and break it with a sweep.

• Most total wins, 31, in 2004. Arkansas potentially would need several postseason wins to break this record, set by a team that won six postseason games at Baum.

• Most SEC wins, 14, in 1999. The Razorbacks would need to sweep Texas A&M to tie the record set by an SEC championship winner.

• Best win percentage, .795, in 2004. Arkansas has an .897 win percentage heading into the Texas A&M series, and the Razorbacks still would have the best win percentage even if they were swept by the Aggies.

"We play good at home," said Van Horn, whose team is 55-11 combined at Baum the past two seasons. "We've won at home. Even some games we maybe didn't deserve to win, somehow we've found a way to come back and win. You think about the Sunday game against Alabama - we probably didn't deserve to win it, but we hit out way back into it and ended up winning. It was a great win."

The ability to come back has been key in Arkansas' home success. The 9-7 win over Alabama on April 29 came during a game the Razorbacks trailed by three runs in the fifth inning. Arkansas has won six home games this season after trailing by three or four runs.

The Razorbacks also have given up late leads on the road because of bullpen struggles or errors.

"When you're on the road and you make a mistake, you feel it," Arkansas second baseman Carson Shaddy said. "The fans around you are letting you know you messed up, and I think that carries significance.

"We feel comfortable playing here and that's one of our biggest tasks, to feel that comfortable playing on the road."