FAYETTEVILLE — Dave Van Horn won his 700th game as Arkansas' coach behind a pair of veteran hitters and a couple of rookie pitchers.
Casey Martin went 3-for-5 with a homer and 4 RBI and fellow junior Matt Goodheart had a pair of hits and 3 RBI as the Razorbacks downed Grand Canyon 10-9 Wednesday to sweep a two-game midweek series with the Antelopes.
Freshman pitchers Zack Morris (1-0) and Payton Pallette, who notched his first save, were the two most effective of nine pitchers for Arkansas (11-5) before 2,111 fans at Baum-Walker Stadium.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Van Horn said when asked if the 700th win meant something to him. “I mean, it’s better than 600. I mean, I appreciate it. I’ve had a lot of good players. It’s like I told the players after the game, they’re congratulating me and I’m congratulating them, telling them, ‘I didn’t play in any one of those games. You guys do it.’
“I’ve had a lot of good teams and a lot of great coaches. Over time, things start to add up.”
GCU’s Juan Colato, the second batter of the game against Arkansas starter Kevin Kopps, blasted a two-run homer in the top of the first to put his team up 2-0.
But Martin quickly wiped that out by hitting a three-run, line-drive homer over the left field fence in the bottom of the inning. Martin's homer followed a Heston Kjerstad single and Goodheart walk.
“He had a great day for us offensively,” Van Horn said of Martin. “I mean, a three-run homer, a couple more RBI or whatever he ended up with. He had a rough night last night. He’s learned how to shake it off. That doesn’t surprise me a bit on how it went for him today with 4 RBI and three hits. He had an opportunity to bounce back and he did it.”
Martin, who started out the season struggling but has now raised his average to .271, had gone 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in Tuesday night’s 6-1 win over the Antelopes.
“I mean baseball is a hard game as it is, super mental and sometimes the best thing to do is just forget about it,” Martin said. “That is what you have to do if you want to play in the game a long time anyway. You just have to flush the day and move on to the next.
“Especially with this team in this league. We found a way to win yesterday. So kudos to our pitching staff and our hitters. They picked me up yesterday. I got a chance a return the favor today. That is what you have got to do, just move on to the next day and flush everything that happened because baseball is a funny game sometimes.”
When Kopps got into trouble in the second inning, Van Horn quickly yanked him in favor of Morris, who allowed one hit and one walk while facing nine batters in 2 1/3 innings.
“Whatever happened with Kopps, he got pulled and I came in and my job was to throw strikes, go in there and compete, execute pitches and just try to put this team in the best case scenario to win,” Morris said.
“I just went mainly fastball, curveball today. Sometimes I wish that I had thrown my changeup a little bit more, but I just attacked them, tried to jam them with my fastball and spin it in there sand get some strikeouts, swings and misses.”
Van Horn said that he could have used Morris more Wednesday, but wanted to make sure he was available to pitch in this weekend’s SEC opening series at Mississippi State.
“We would have just let him go if it was Tuesday and we didn’t plan on throwing him until Sunday,” Van Horn said. “We wanted him to be available Saturday and Sunday. Same with a couple of other guys in there. I thought he threw the ball extremely well. He hasn’t complained, because he probably could have, because we should probably give him the ball a little more. We have a lot of confidence in him.”
Arkansas added three runs in the second inning to take a 6-3 lead, saw that cut to 6-5 in the fifth and both teams plated four runs in the bottom of the sixth and top of the seventh.
The Razorbacks took a 10-9 lead to the eighth.
Martin praised Pallette, who closed the game with two scoreless innings of one-hit ball and who induced a double play to end it.
“As a young guy stepping into that position, it was a big RPI game,” Martin said. “They are a good team and I think they will win their side of the conference. For Pallette to be put in that position, that is good for him to see, good for future experience knowing that we can count on him to throw strikes in that situation and get outs and trust his defense.”
Pallette said he threw mostly his fastball and curveball in his two innings of work.
“Man, it was something special,” Pallette said. “That was the first time of me saving here and it was really an honor to come out on that mound and get that one for the Hogs. I try to cancel out everything around me. The score kind of when I go in, but this one was really tight and close. It was something different.”
Grand Canyon (9-9), which has beaten Oklahoma State twice and both Stanford and Oregon once this season, out-hit Arkansas 12-11.
Van Horn said he plans to start Patrick Wicklander on Friday, Connor Noland on Saturday and likely either Caleb Bolden or Kole Ramage on Sunday at Mississippi State.
“I’d say one of those two for sure,” Van Horn said. “If we use both of them to win a couple games, if that’s what we had to do, we’ll pick somebody else.”