FAYETTEVILLE — The sixth-ranked Arkansas baseball team scored three runs in each of the first two innings Sunday and never trailed during a 7-2 victory over 12th-ranked Tennessee.
Arkansas (29-7, 11-4 SEC) swept the three-game series against the Volunteers (23-13, 5-10).
The Razorbacks took a 1 1/2-game lead over top-ranked LSU in the SEC West standings at the midway point of conference play.
"It was just a big, big win for us to finish this thing off," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said.
"We got a couple big hits and, hey, what a weekend for us."
Arkansas took advantage of command issues by Tennessee right-hander Drew Beam, who threw 36 pitches in the first inning. Beam walked three of the first four batters he faced and Peyton Stovall had an RBI single in the Razorbacks’ second at-bat to give Arkansas a 1-0 lead.
Brady Slavens had a sacrifice fly and Caleb Cali added a two-out RBI single in the first to push the Razorbacks’ lead to 3-0. Slavens hit a three-run triple with two outs in the second inning to give Arkansas a 6-0 lead.
"The guy has good stuff — good breaking ball, good fastball, and he’d only walked nine all year," Van Horn said of Beam. "We got his pitch count up. We fouled off a lot of pitches."
Slavens finished 1 for 3 with 4 RBI. The first baseman also saved a run in the top of the second inning. He extended his 6-3 frame and was able to keep a toe on the bag for the final out after a long throw from the third baseman Cali.
"Defensively, he's probably better than anybody in this league that I've seen so far," Van Horn said. "He's saved a lot of runs, made a lot of great plays."
The Volunteers did not score against Arkansas freshman right-hander Ben Bybee until the fourth inning when Jared Dickey plated two runners on a two-out single with the bases loaded.
Bybee’s 3 1/3-inning start was his longest outing in SEC play. He allowed 2 runs, 1 hit and 4 walks, and struck out 3. He threw 27 of 56 pitches for strikes.
Right-hander Dylan Carter pitched a career-long 4 2/3 innings of scoreless relief to earn his sixth win. Carter allowed 6 hits and 1 walk, and struck out during his 73-pitch outing.
"Really, really gutsy performance by Dylan Carter," Van Horn said.
"We just felt like he kind of got better there in the eighth. We were thinking, ‘That’s probably it.’ He wanted to go back out, and he had a really quick eighth. I think he just ran out of gas."
Carter allowed a walk and double with no outs in the ninth inning, but freshman right-hander Christian Foutch kept the Volunteers from scoring when he retired the 9-1-2 hitters in order to end the game.
"He’s one of the younger guys we have left in the bullpen, but you’ve got to go with what your eyes tell you, what you see," Van Horn said, "and what we’ve been setting is Christian has been throwing good, been throwing better than some other guys. He’s hard to hit."
Tennessee had the lead-off hitter on base in five innings, but the Vols were just 2 for 16 with runners on base and 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. They stranded nine base runners and hit into two double plays.
Arkansas sent Tennessee to the bullpen after Slavens’ second-inning triple.
“Slavens is tough," Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said. "You talk about leaving a guy in, that was the biggest at-bat of the game and maybe if we got somebody different out there, he gets him out. But Slavens has done a lot of damage in his time here at Arkansas."
Beam, last season’s SEC freshman of the year and a first-round draft prospect for 2024, allowed 6 runs, 4 hits and 4 walks, and struck out 2 in 1 2/3 innings. He threw 33 of 62 pitches for strikes.
Right-hander Chase Burns, pitching outside of the weekend rotation for the first time this season, gave the Vols 5 1/3 innings of solid relief. He allowed 1 run, 3 hits and 2 walks, and struck out 5 during his 79-pitch outing.
Arkansas’ only run against Burns was a solo home run by Tavian Josenberger in the sixth inning. The 361-foot shot to right field came one pitch after John Bolton was thrown out trying to steal second base.
The Razorbacks have homered in 32 consecutive games.
Arkansas outscored Tennessee 18-7 during the series. The Volunteers scored their fewest runs during an SEC series in which every game went nine innings since 2019 against Georgia (6).
Tennessee also scored seven runs at Missouri earlier this year. Two games in that series lasted seven innings.
Arkansas swept an SEC series for the second time this season. The Vols have been swept twice for the first time in four years.