FAYETTEVILLE — The Arkansas baseball team will tweak its rotation for the series against No. 7 LSU this week.
Left-hander Mason Molina will pitch the second game of the series Friday and right-hander Brady Tygart will pitch the third game Saturday. Lefty Hagen Smith will remain in the No. 1 role for Thursday's series opener at 6 p.m.
Tygart has been the Game 2 starter and Molina has started Game 3 each weekend this season for the No. 1 Razorbacks (20-3, 5-1 SEC). Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said the decision was made to give Tygart an extra day "to get right" following a short outing at Auburn last week.
"I feel great about Brady," Van Horn said. "His stuff is good. He competes hard. I think that he's had a little bit of command issues with his fastball. He gets that straightened out, he'll be good to go. So I have all the confidence in the world and him.”
Tygart allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and a career-high 5 walks in 3 2/3 innings of the Razorbacks' 6-5 victory over Auburn last Friday. Tygart also had 4 strikeouts and threw 39 of 76 pitches for strikes.
Following the game, Arkansas pitching coach Matt Hobbs said Tygart was experiencing an issue with his release.
"I guess for lack of a better term, he's spinning off the ball a little bit,” Hobbs said. “He's not staying through the ball as well as he was earlier in the season. It’s something we have to work on and fix. He’s aware of it. I’m aware of it."
Tygart enters his start against LSU with a 1.59 ERA, which ranks fifth in the SEC. His .160 batting average against ranks sixth.
"We have a ton of confidence in Brady," Hobbs said last week.