FAYETTEVILLE -- Tennessee's pitchers came into this weekend's series against the University of Arkansas baseball team with a 2.68 earned run average to lead the nation.
The Razorbacks don't care.
Arkansas roughed up Tennessee's pitching staff for the second consecutive game and beat the No. 18 Vols 15-3 on Saturday night at Baum-Walker Stadium before an announced crowd of 9,842.
The No. 7 Razorbacks (33-11, 14-6 SEC) have scored 26 runs in two games against the Vols (31-13, 9-11) after beating them 11-9 on Friday night.
Arkansas, which maintained a 1½-game lead over Ole Miss in the SEC West, has the two highest-scoring games against Tennessee this season. The Vols had allowed more than five runs in only four of their first 42 games before playing the Razorbacks.
The Razorbacks had 17 hits on Saturday night after having 16 in the series opener.
Saturday night's barrage featured 10 extra-base hits, including four home runs -- two by Heston Kjerstad and one each by Jordan McFarland and Casey Martin.
Christian Franklin went 4 for 4 with a walk and scored 3 runs for the Razorbacks.
Kjerstad went 3 for 5 with 5 RBI and 3 runs scored. Trevor Ezell was 3 for 5 with 3 runs scored and 2 RBI. Martin went 2 for 5 with 5 RBI and 2 runs scored.
"It's always fun when you go against a pitching staff like them, one of the better ones in the nation from what everyone has been saying," Kjerstad said. "We all love the challenge and the competition. I think that brings the best out of all of us hitters."
McFarland, who started at DH because Matt Goodheart was out with a shoulder injury, was on base four times. He went 2 for 3, was hit by a pitch, walked and scored 3 runs.
"I'm happy for Jordan if it happens against another team, but I was dog-cussing from the dugout," said Tennessee Coach Tony Vitello, a former Arkansas assistant coach who helped recruit McFarland for the Razorbacks. "You can get away with that here because it gets so loud that nobody can hear you anyway -- even if you're standing next to me.
"If a guy goes down and you get an opportunity, then you need to seize it."
In the past nine games, the Razorbacks have combined for 132 hits and 108 runs. They're 6-0 in SEC games during that stretch with 87 hits and 67 runs.
"The offense is clicking right now," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "With baseball, that's just kind of the way it works. Sometimes you struggle and you fight it, and when it's going good you've got to get as many wins as you can and score runs when you can.
"Our offense has just been seeing the ball good. We've had a lot of timely hits."
The Razorbacks' only loss in their past nine games was 10-7 against Northwestern (La.) State on Wednesday night.
"Even in our loss, we still hit the ball hard and scored seven runs," Van Horn said. "We probably hit another six or seven balls on the nose right at people."
Arkansas scored four runs in the third inning on Saturday night against Garrett Stallings to take a 4-0 lead.
"The first couple innings we didn't touch Stallings," Van Horn said. "He had it going pretty good. You're thinking, 'Man, it's going to be tough to score some runs off this guy right now.'
"Then McFarland hits the first pitch of the third inning into the crowd."
McFarland led off the third inning with his second home run this season. Franklin followed with a double, Ezell singled and Martin hit a three-run home run.
The Razorbacks batted around and knocked Stallings -- who came in with a 1.82 ERA -- out of the game in the fourth inning when they scored four runs to push their lead to 8-0.
Arkansas freshman left-hander Patrick Wicklander (4-1) started and went a season-best 5⅔ innings. He held Tennessee to 2 runs, 4 hits and 1 walk with 7 strikeouts.
"Just a really, really good start by Patrick," Van Horn said. "He had a good fastball and a really good breaking ball, mixed in some changeups. He kept them off balance a little bit."
Kjerstad hit a three-run home over the scoreboard in the seventh inning to push the Razorbacks' lead to 14-2. He has a team-high 11 home runs this season.
"He has got power to all fields, and like every hitter, he's a mistake hitter," Vitello said. "If you make a [bad] pitch, he's going to hit it over the scoreboard -- or at least he did that tonight. He hit a pretty decent pitch [on the first home run]. He's a special talent."
In Tennessee's previous nine games, the Vols held their opponents to nine runs, including three shutouts in SEC victories over Georgia 2-0 and 3-0, and Kentucky 5-0. They allowed five runs last week in a three-game sweep at Kentucky.
"I think you're bound to have a game or two where things don't go your way or you run into a hot team," Van Horn said of how the Razorbacks have handled Tennessee's pitching staff. "It's maybe the perfect storm right now."
Sports on 04/28/2019