The Arkansas batting order was devastating last season. One through nine, there was not an easy out.
At times, shortstop Jax Biggers batted ninth. He had led the Razorbacks in hitting in 2017.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime lineup, one through nine,” said UALR coach Chris Curry last fall after an exhibition with what will be the 2019 Hogs. “I don’t know that Coach (Dave) Van Horn will ever have anything like that again. No one may.”
That was pitched to Van Horn in early January. He didn’t disagree with his former assistant coach.
“We played it different with that lineup last year,” Van Horn said. “We didn’t bunt. We didn’t try to steal bases. We played for the big inning.”
And, the Hogs got them. They broke the school record with 98 home runs. Five players made it to double digits in homers. The Hogs had only 21 sacrifice bunts, the least in Van Horn’s 16 seasons at Arkansas.
Now, there were times when Van Horn played it different and it paid dividends. He crossed up the scouting report a few times in Omaha when the wind was blowing in at spacious TD Ameritrade Park.
“We did against Texas Tech in Omaha,” Van Horn said. “We got ahead, and I called two hit and runs, maybe back-to-back. We will do more of that this year.”
The Hogs were special in 2018, going 48-21 overall and 18-12 in the SEC. That was Van Horn’s most overall wins in 16 seasons, and the 10th time with at least 40 wins.
The Hogs will still have power with three of the big boppers back. Heston Kjerstad (14 HR, 58 RBI), Casey Martin (13 HR, 49 RBI) and Dominic Fletcher (10 HR, 49 RBI) will still be in the heart of a potent batting order.
But there will be more bunts from that group. There was some joking as the cover shot was set up for the Hawgs Illustrated Baseball Preview in early January. Photographer Ben Goff suggested that one of the three should pose in a bunt stance.
“I don’t ever bunt unless they leave the left side open with a shift, and there are two on base,” said Kjerstad, dead serious. “Get Dominic to do it. He led us in bunt hits last year.”
Bunt singles don’t show up in the stat sheet available online, just sacrifice bunts. Martin had three, Fletcher one. Sure enough, Kjerstad had none.
The Hogs will try to manufacture some runs with this team. In the fall, Van Horn put the Hogs through extra workouts on taking bases when pitches were in the dirt.
“You get what you emphasize,” Van Horn said. “We do work every day on bunting, although last year we didn’t do it enough in games to be good at it. You couldn’t tell sometimes in games we had worked on it.”
They worked harder on it in the fall and moving on pitches in the dirt was a point of emphasis in the exhibitions against Wichita State and UALR.
“Last year, we didn’t push the envelope on that,” Van Horn said. “We were hitting home runs and playing for the big inning. It was almost comical how little we ran. We only had 26 stolen bases.”
They’ll beat that this year, maybe in a big way. They open official practice Friday with a team that will be pushed to be different in what still could be a very good season.
“We’ve got more guys who can run,” Van Horn said. “We worked on base stealing in the fall. And, we really have worked hard on dirt-ball reads. If you want to be good at something, spend time on it, and we did.”
Some might expect to see those three big boppers in the 3-4-5 spots in the lineup. That's not what Van Horn was thinking three weeks out from the Feb. 15 season opener against Eastern Illinois. He would like to write a lineup with Martin, Kjerstad and Fletcher spaced out a bit.
“We won't stack them together or teams will pitch around them,” Van Horn said. “We've got to build a lineup that spaces them out. I think we will be able to do that.”
Transfer newcomers Trevor Ezell (Southeast Missouri) and Matt Goodheart (San Jacinto Community College), along with returnee Jordan McFarland are likely to be those spaced around Kjerstad, Martin and Fletcher.
Ezell is a switch hitter, McFarland hits right handed and Goodheart is a lefty at the plate. That gives Van Horn lots of options as he writes a batting order.
Van Horn is mindful that he wrote Kjerstad's name for every game last season. Kjerstad started all 69 games.
“That's incredible,” Van Horn said. “That was probably too many. You could see him start to fade at the end of the year.
“We made the decision early at Omaha that we were going to send him home after the College World Series and we did.”
Kjerstad was scheduled to play the summer in the Cape Cod League. He wasn't sad to go home to Amarillo, Texas, but knew what was waiting on him: work in the family business.
The family's two Water Still stores, selling iced tea, gobbles up any spare time when he returns.
“That's always fun, even when it's work,” he said. “I was hauling stuff between the two stores, or working the drive thru. I enjoy that. You are making change and if the register isn't working, you make it in your head. I'm good at math so that's fine.”
Kjerstad can work the numbers in his head to know if his batting average is going up or down. He knows it went down late last season and there is much room for improvement.
“It's about knowing the strike zone better,” he said. “That's where I can get better.”
Van Horn said Kjerstad, as well as Martin, are like most young hitters. They don't know the strike zone and they chase bad pitches.
“The young ones go out of the zone,” Van Horn said. “One of the few we got here that was patient and knew the zone right away was Andrew Benintendi.
“But he had a different background. He always hit leadoff, and you are told to take your walks and work the count as a leadoff hitter. I fully expect Andrew to hit leadoff (for the Boston Red Sox) before he's done.
“What you saw with Heston is that they'd get him 1-2 in the count, then start climbing the ladder, out of the zone with the fastball. His eyes would get big and he'd chase.
“I tell them, the guy who gets to pro ball and goes pretty fast from high (Class) A ball to the big leagues are the ones who know the strike zone. The pitchers are so good in pro ball that they aren't going to pitch you in the strike zone until you prove to them you won't chase their pitch.”
Hitting coach Nate Thompson said that's what he's preaching to all of his hitters, but especially to Kjerstad, Martin and Fletcher.
“Heston needs better plate discipline, the ability to hunt his pitch,” Thompson said. “Just don't give in. Everybody circles him in the lineup. He's the guy.
“He showed power last year, but there is more in the tank. He just has to realize how people are attacking him.”
Martin is less patient. He had only one walk in SEC play. His hands are quick and he's quick to pull the trigger.
“That's his deal too, just continue to get better with plate discipline,” Thompson said. “That lineup last year was so deep that he got protected quite a bit. People couldn't pitch around him because of what was behind him.
“We are striving to create that this year, too, but we need for some guys to step up.”
Fletcher may have learned that plate discipline after early struggles last year. He's not one to take many walks, either.
“I thought he really matured and made some nice adjustments later in the season last year,” Thompson said. “He was really good in Omaha and if you look at his SEC numbers, they were really good.”
Fletcher hit .288 for the season, but he was .322 for SEC play.
Van Horn watched Kjerstad and Martin compete all season.
“Really, it made sense for them to compete against each other,” he said. “They weren't going to measure themselves against the older players, but against each other since they were both freshmen.”
Kjerstad was named SEC Freshman of the Year, but it might have gone to Martin if the award had been awarded after the NCAA tournament. Martin passed him in batting average and led the team, hitting .345. Kjerstad was next at .332. They each had 87 hits to break the team record for freshmen.
“It was voted on after the regular season,” Van Horn said. “The league coaches picked it and I didn't have a vote. I'm sure they were the two that were considered so it was Heston or Casey.”
Most expect their numbers to go up this year. They are both thought of as future first-round picks, just like Benintendi. The good news, they aren't draft eligible yet.
That's one of the reasons Martin is moving from third base to shortstop. Jack Kenley, who subbed for the injured Biggers late last season, is draft eligible and Van Horn expects the junior to sign.
“We could put Casey at short now and have him back for another year,” Van Horn said. “We can still move him back to third and play Kenley at short. We have two very good shortstops for this level.”
OK, for the second straight year the Hogs have a shortstop as their top returning hitter. Just don't expect Van Horn to write Martin's name in the No. 9 spot in the batting order.