Grand swing: Wallace cracks open tight game with ASU

FAYETTEVILLE — The historic first meeting between the University of Arkansas and Arkansas State University was a pitcher’s duel between the Red Wolves’ Tyler Jeans and three Razorback hurlers for four swift innings on Tuesday night.

Then Cayden Wallace struck the blow that blew the game open.

Wallace hit an opposite-field grand slam to right field in the fifth inning and Christian Franklin followed with an RBI double to propel the No. 1 Razorbacks to an 8-4 victory before a crowd of 7,645 at Baum-Walker Stadium.

Arkansas (37-9), playing its first midweek game in four weeks, used a parade of nine pitchers, many of whom had not been getting much work on recent weekends. They held the Red Wolves (16-25) to four hits. Only Elijah Trest, pitching in the seventh inning, allowed an earned run.

Freshman 6-6 starter Jaxon Wiggins allowed 1 hit and struck out 3 in his 2-inning stint, throwing 20 strikes among his 31 pitches. Junior Connor Noland, making his second appearance since returning from arm soreness, retired all three batters he faced in the ninth inning with two strikeouts.

“I thought we pitched extremely well,” Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. “I felt like Wiggins came out and did a really nice job. Pretty much sat 96-98 [mph]. Someone who would stand out a little was Noland at the end. He did a really good job. Hard slider, fastball 92-93 [mph]. It was good to see those guys because we’re going to need as many as we can down the stretch.”

Van Horn said he did not want Wiggins to throw more than 35 pitches so he could be in consideration for a Sunday start at Tennessee.

“On the offensive side, we put together a couple of good innings,” he said. “I’m just glad we were able to get a win in a game in between two big series.”

The Red Wolves got a strong start out of the 6-4 freshman Jeans (1-3), but they rode him a few batters too long in his third start.

“We were hoping to get out of the fifth with him,” Arkansas State Coach Tommy Raffo said. “It didn’t work.”

Catcher Dylan Leach, batting ninth, opened the inning with a sharp single to left field. Jeans hit leadoff man Zack Gregory with a pitch, then Matt Goodheart walked on four pitches to load the bases for Wallace.

The freshman had looked out of sync while striking out twice against Jeans earlier in the game, but the right-handed hitter timed a 2-1 slider that was diving to the outside corner and drove it over the right-field fence for his 10th home run.

“It happened really quick,” Raffo said. “The two-strike hit by Leach was big. I thought that we’ve got to get the 9-hole out, but he got on base with a hit, and then two pitches later was an HBP and then before you know it there was a walk. It snowballed really quick.

“I thought Wallace did an unbelievable job on the slider away with power. That changed the whole mood of the game.”

Arkansas pulled ahead 8-1 with three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, including RBI doubles from Brady Slavens and Cullen Smith.

The Red Wolves battled back with three runs in the eighth while batting around as the Razorbacks struggled defensively.

The third baseman Smith dropped Drew Tipton’s high infield pop-up for a two-base error, and before the inning ended, the Razorbacks walked two batters, Leach failed to catch a foul pop behind home plate and shortstop Jalen Battles mishandled a routine force-out toss to second base that allowed the third run to score.

The strange half-inning also included a flare single to left field by Liam Hicks that did not advance Tipton from second and a two-run double from Tyler Duncan to the gap in left-center field off Zack Morris. None of the runs were earned.

Left-hander Lael Lockhart (2-2), pitching for the first time since his one-out start at LSU on May 1, snagged the win with two quality innings of relief. He struck out three batters, induced a couple of pop-ups to shortstop and one ground ball to Battles at short to retire all six batters he faced.

“Lockhart, that might have been some of the best stuff he’s had,” Van Horn said. “He gives us two strong innings, had good velocity and command. It was really good to see.”

Jeans, who entered with a 6.41 ERA, held the Razorbacks at bay for 4 innings with 4 strikeouts, 1 hit allowed on a Smith double and 4 walks before running into big trouble in the fifth.

After Wallace’s grand slam, Jeans walked Slavens, then Franklin greeted Brandon Anderson with a double just inside the third-base bag to make it 5-0.

Jeans opened the game by issuing consecutive walks to Gregory and Goodheart on nine pitches, but he retired the next three hitters in order. Jeans also distributed two-out walks to Battles and Leach with two outs in the second inning but fanned Gregory.

“First off, I thought he did a nice job,” Van Horn said of Jeans. “You’re talking about a true freshman. He threw two different breaking balls. Threw a real slow one and threw a slider-type pitch. He threw his fastball about 90 mph.

“The first two innings we should’ve got him. He walked four in the first two innings, and we didn’t score a run.”

Both teams gave up walks and played poor defense in the weird seventh and eighth innings.

“We faced a very good team — the best in the country — and you just can’t give them stuff,” Raffo said. “I think that came back to haunt us a little bit. If you look at their eight runs, I think four or five of them were easily free bases.”

Smith was the only player with two hits in the game, while Wallace and Slavens scored a couple of runs each for the Razorbacks.