FAYETTEVILLE — Baseball is all about the numbers, especially fun when your team is winning.
Sometimes they are validation of what you already knew. Sometimes they just provide a little more perspective.
How about these for providing confirmation that Connor Noland picked the right sport: Compare his strikeouts (11) in the season opener Friday, to his completion total (10) in his one start in football in 2018.
“I kinda like that,” Noland said after a sterling performance as No. 5 Arkansas rolled past Eastern Illinois for a 5-1 victory at Baum-Walker Stadium in the season opener.
Noland gave up an unearned run in the seventh inning after shortstop Casey Martin failed to glove a grounder. He threw 60 of his 86 pitches for strikes, mixing a 93 mph fastball, a wipeout slider and a sharp curve.
The overmatched Panthers managed only four hits for the day, two in Noland’s 6 2/3 innings. They had only two runners in scoring position. There was one in the first, but Casey Opitz erased Grant Emme trying to advance on a Noland pitch in the dirt.
Noland’s performance was about what the Razorbacks have gotten accustomed to seeing on Friday the last two seasons with Blaine Knight and Isaiah Campbell.
“He was awesome,” said Dave Van Horn, the Arkansas coach. “His stuff was really good. He was wild up in the first inning, not something we’ve seen from him.
“Then he got it going. From the third inning on his breaking balls were really good. They were seeing fastball and it was a slider. He pitched ahead from the third inning until we pulled him. He got a lot of quick innings.”
Arkansas needed a good pitching performance. Eastern Illinois ace Will Klein (6-5, 225) was almost as good for four innings. Klein, the EIU closer last year, consistently hit 96 mph on the scoreboard radar gun and topped out at 98.
Arkansas grabbed a one-run lead in the first when Braydon Webb walked, moved to second on a wild pickoff throw and Heston Kjerstad bounced a two-out single into left field.
The Razorbacks figured out Klein in the fifth. Webb singled with two outs, then Christian Franklin slammed a two-run homer deep in the seats behind the UA bullpen. It came on the first pitch after a mound visit from the dugout.
Kjerstad followed with a liner into the EIU bullpen to make it 4-0 then later sliced a solo homer in the seventh inning to set the final score.
Franklin hit six homers last year as a freshman, but didn’t show a lot of pull power. Van Horn had predicted there would be more this year after some offseason adjustments in his swing.
“He’s shortened it,” Van Horn said. “It’s not as loopy. Now he can pull and backspin it. Last year, everything to the pull side was top spin.
“The one he hit today was back spun. He hit the bottom of the ball and it was way out.”
With a 6 mph wind from the southeast, left field was the place to hit something out of the park.
“But the wind didn’t help that one,” Van Horn said. “If anything the wind knocked down Christian’s. The one Heston hit (in the seventh), the wind probably did help.”
Franklin said the shortened swing has helped against big-time fastballs like what Klein was showing Friday.
“Last year, I was struggling with velocity,” Franklin said. “I worked in the summer and this fall and it’s helped against plus velocity.”
Franklin said he was sitting on Klein’s fastball.
“You will see more of that,” Van Horn said of the newly found Franklin power.
Klein was impressive. Van Horn often downplays the high velocity numbers displayed on the scoreboard.
“That (96-98 mph) was about right,” Van Horn said. “He’s a big-time guy. He probably made him some money today, going through a pretty good batting order a couple of times. If he stays healthy, he’s going to pitch a long time.”
The Razorbacks managed only eight hits for the day, probably not bad on a cold day. It was 41 at first pitch and not much warmer by the end. Kjerstad had three, Cole Austin two.
Webb, the fourth-year junior via Grayson (Texas) Community College, had one hit and scored twice. He also made a sparkling catch with a dive that landed on the warning track in left center.
Van Horn said the crash landing made everyone wince in the dugout. A diving catch by Webb in the fall resulted in a broken bone in his shoulder.
“That was a really good play,” Van Horn said. “But anytime he falls down like that, we get nervous.”
There really wasn’t much to make anyone nervous Friday. Noland worked fast all day and the defense played well. Someone clocked him between pitches and it was mostly a gap of seven seconds.
“He was working fast,” Van Horn said. “The defense likes that. We let Casey (Opitz) call the pitches and those guys were rolling.”
Noland said he likes to “push the pace” when he’s “in the zone.” That was obvious. He was quicker to the plate than last year when he went 3-5 over 19 starts. His 11 strikeouts topped a best of 10 set against Tennessee.
Now back to his only start at quarterback, the victory over Tulsa in 2018. The Greenwood product was 10 of 16 for 124 passing yards.
Reminded of that day, Noland said, “Thanks for remembering that stat.”
Noland was on a pitch count limit for the first weekend. It will go up.
A reporter pointed to his No. 13 jersey with a challenge, “You can go after that strikeout total next now that you’ve beaten that completion number from Tulsa.”