Hogs drop series as pitching falters

Hogs drop series as pitchng falters

NWA Democrat-Gazette/ANDY SHUPE
Arkansas third baseman Chad Spanberger connects with the ball against Alcorn State Wednesday, March 15, 2017, during the seventh inning at Baum Stadium. Visit nwadg.com/photos to see more photographs from the game.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/ANDY SHUPE Arkansas third baseman Chad Spanberger connects with the ball against Alcorn State Wednesday, March 15, 2017, during the seventh inning at Baum Stadium. Visit nwadg.com/photos to see more photographs from the game.

AUBURN, Ala. -- Off-speed pitches gave and took away from Arkansas over the course of its weekend series at Auburn.

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Three Razorbacks relievers befuddled the Tigers on Saturday, continuously drawing them out of the strike zone with breaking pitches over 7 2/3 innings of two-hit ball.

There was no fooling Auburn in Sunday's series finale.

The Tigers accumulated 16 hits, including 10 for extra bases, in an 11-6 victory over the Razorbacks in front of 2,663 fans on an overcast day at Plainsman Park.

Arkansas (32-10, 12-6 SEC) lost its first SEC road series of the season.

"I think they knew what was coming," Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn said. "I think it was good hitting and bad location."

Auburn (30-12, 12-6 SEC) broke a 6-6 tie with a three-run seventh inning, and the Tigers did most of their damage in the inning against breaking balls out of the right hand of reliever Cannon Chadwick, who just one day earlier pitched 4 1/3 innings of hitless ball in Arkansas' victory on Saturday.

Chadwick, from Paris, Texas, gave up three runs without recording an out Sunday, walked No. 5 Auburn hitter Dylan Ingram before allowing consecutive doubles down the left-field line to shortstop Luke Jarvis and third baseman Josh Anthony, who was the series star for Auburn.

Anthony, who was 9 for 12 with 7 RBI in the three-game series, drove in two runs with his extra-base hit and came around to score the Tigers' third run in the seventh on Bo Decker's double that nearly cleared the 30-foot green wall in left field.

Seven of Auburn's 10 extra-base hits came from Ingram, Jarvis and Anthony.

"We just hit the mistakes," Anthony said. "Those offspeed pitchers were kind of up in the zone."

Auburn dominated the early innings throughout the weekend, but Arkansas had a chance to start fast on Sunday when it loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the second. Auburn starter Ryan Watson limited the damage to one run on a sacrifice fly.

It was the first time in the series the Razorbacks scored first, but the lead didn't last long.

Auburn scored four in the bottom of the first, all of which were charged to Arkansas starter Josh Alberius. The Tigers outscored the Razorbacks a combined 21-7 over the first three innings of the three games.

"I would say it was just a really good job by their offense at the beginning of each game and not a real good job by our three starting pitchers, because all three of them didn't have a good day," Van Horn said.

Alberius, a redshirt senior from Little Rock, struggled to command his cutter, and Auburn batters took advantage.

Jarvis gave Auburn a 2-1 lead on a two-run home run over the left-field wall that came on a 80-mph cut fastball. Jonah Todd, taking advantage of another hanging cutter, added a two-out, two-run double off the left-field wall.

"We were trying to mix it up a little bit, but Alberius left a couple up," Van Horn said. "One hit the wall. One went over the fence. He had good stuff in the first. He got through the first pretty quick, but (in) the second inning, didn't spot it up. He's a spot-it-up guy. He didn't spot it up. It won't work, obviously."

Arkansas' three starting pitchers in the series -- Blaine Knight, Trevor Stephan and Alberius -- yielded 15 runs over 5 1/3 combined innings of work, and it caused Van Horn to dip into his bullpen far more than he would have liked.

"It affected everything," Van Horn said. "If our starters give us a better shot, we've got a real good shot at winning the series. But when you're in the bullpen as much as we were and trying to recycle guys today, we would have had to score 14, 15 runs to win today the way our guys pitched. They were tired, and they weren't hitting spots. Auburn took advantage of us."

Arkansas, which has lost two of its past three series, moves on to a Tuesday matchup with Kansas State at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City before hosting Ole Miss at Baum Stadium next weekend.

"What you gain throughout the year is just experience in how to handle your players," Van Horn said. "I didn't learn a whole lot (this weekend), to be honest with you. I learned that we're going to have to be a lot better starting on Friday, Saturday, Sunday with our starting pitching or we're going to be in trouble."

Sports on 04/24/2017

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