Arkansas made a statement for its postseason resumé Sunday.
The third-ranked Razorbacks defeated No. 18 Auburn 7-4 at Plainsman Park to win a three-game series between a pair of teams that are battling to be top-eight national seeds in next month’s NCAA Tournament.
Arkansas (36-12, 16-8 SEC) maintained its lead in the SEC West with two weeks to play in the regular season. The Razorbacks, who improved to 5-2 in series-clinching finales, have games remaining against No. 23 Vanderbilt and at Alabama.
Arkansas entered Sunday with a one-game lead over Texas A&M and a two-game lead over Auburn and LSU.
Starter Jaxon Wiggins threw five solid innings for Arkansas in his best outing in three weeks. Wiggins allowed 1 earned run, 4 hits and 2 walks, and struck out 6 in his 90-pitch start.
Wiggins had pitched a combined 3 1/3 innings in his two previous starts against Texas A&M and Ole Miss.
Will McEntire pitched a strong 3 1/3 innings in relief in his SEC debut. The third-year right hander has been Arkansas’ midweek starter in recent weeks.
McEntire retired nine of the first 10 hitters he faced. He ran into trouble in the ninth when Brody Moore doubled to lead off and pinch hitter Mason Land hit a one-out single.
Following a pitching change to Evan Taylor, the Tigers scored a run on a fielding error by shortstop Jalen Battles, who could not handle a grounder off the bat of Cole Foster. It was the second error of the game by Battles and one of three committed by the Razorbacks.
Battles redeemed himself six pitches later when he started a shortstop-to-second base-to-first base double play that ended the game.
The Razorbacks out-hit the Tigers 13-7, but stranded 14 base runners, including the bases loaded in the fifth and ninth innings on strikeouts by Robert Moore.
Braydon Webb hit a three-run home run to left-center field in the third inning to give Arkansas a 5-2 lead. Webb’s team-leading 12th homer was clocked 104 mph off the bat and traveled 404 feet.
Auburn (32-16, 13-11) scored two unearned runs against Wiggins in the first inning. Arkansas third baseman Cayden Wallace committed a one-out throwing error to allow Kason Howell on base and Bobby Peirce hit a two-run home run to right field with two outs.
The Tigers added a pair of two-out singles against Wiggins, but he escaped trouble when he struck out Cam Hill to end the 29-pitch inning.
From there, Auburn did little offensively. The Tigers had just two hits between the second and eighth innings.
Arkansas tied the game 2-2 in the top of the second inning. Webb singled to lead off and scored on Battles’ RBI groundout. Wallace tied the game with a two-out RBI double to score Jace Bohrofen, who also doubled.
The Razorbacks’ five doubles were a season high.
Auburn pulled within 5-3 on Sonny DiChiara’s leadoff home run to right field in the third inning. DiChiara’s 15th home run was the Tigers’ seventh of the series. Six of those home runs were solo and four led off an inning.
Wallace added another two-out RBI double off the 30-foot wall in left field to extend the Razorbacks’ lead to 6-3 in the fifth inning. Battles hit a sacrifice fly in the sixth to score Kendall Diggs to extend the lead to 7-3.
Wallace and Battles each had 2 RBI.
Arkansas had nine hits in 2 2/3 innings against Auburn right-handed starter Joseph Gonzalez. In his five SEC starts prior to Sunday, Gonzalez had pitched at least six innings.