Cast of Pitchers, Moore Lead Arkansas to Victory

Image credit: Arkansas 2B Robert Moore (Photo courtesy of Arkansas)

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Pitching as part of this Arkansas pitching staff has some similarities to shift work. Everyone has a role to play, it’s not necessarily glamorous, there’s not a lot of individual glory to be had, but it’s honest work and it’s effective. 

On Thursday, it was extremely effective in No. 1 Arkansas’ 6-1 victory against No. 9 South Carolina to begin the series in Columbia. 

It started with righthander Caleb Bolden, who got the assignment in large part because he hadn’t been taxed in the way many of the team’s other pitchers had been recently. The Razorbacks played a Saturday doubleheader last weekend against Texas A&M and then finished that series with a nearly four-hour game Sunday that ended with an 11-10 final score, so what was already a short week with a Thursday opener felt even shorter. 

Bolden had inspired confidence with some of his recent outings, but coach Dave Van Horn made no bones about turning to him because he was relatively fresh after throwing just one inning against the Aggies last weekend. 

“He’s our freshest guy, really,” Van Horn said prior to the series. “Caleb’s started some games for us over the last few weeks, and he threw pretty good the other day.”

In Bolden’s first career SEC start, Arkansas was clearly looking for quality over length, just enough to give the Razorbacks a shot to get into the game. 

He delivered, giving his team 3.1 solid innings. He gave up two hits and one run, walking three and striking out two. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave the Razorbacks what they needed. That was his shift, if you will. 

“Bolden went out and gave us some quality innings,” Van Horn said.

“He was throwing fastballs, spotting it in and out. What really led to us pulling him was that he stopped throwing his breaking ball for a strike, his slider. Because early, (in) the first couple of innings, it was pretty good, and he’s also throwing changeups to lefthanders, so those are the three pitches that he was going with.”

As his breaking ball began to elude him, Bolden ran into trouble in the fourth inning. He walked Andrew Eyster to begin the inning and his one run allowed scored on a Colin Burgess double that brought home Eyster. He was then lifted for righthander Ryan Costeiu. 

Costeiu’s role was to get out of the jam there, and he did so by getting an infield pop-up from George Calill and striking out Jeff Heinrich looking. 

After a quick fifth, he got into his own trouble in the sixth by walking David Mendham to begin the frame and hitting Eyster with a pitch. At that point, he gave way to lefthander Caden Monke, who escaped that jam by getting a popped up bunt from Josiah Sightler and then inducing a double play off the bat of Burgess. 

At that point, three Arkansas pitchers had thrown six innings, giving up two hits and one run with four walks and four strikeouts. They weren’t dominant, it wasn’t always pretty, but they wiggled out of every jam presented to them. 

“We just did a great job on the mound, especially when you’re starting a guy in Bolden that hadn’t started an SEC game this year,” Van Horn said. “He was kind of coming in here with a little bit of short rest for some of our pitcher, (so) we had to change it up a little bit, and the other guys, they responded. (The) bullpen came through like they’ve been doing most of the season.”

Their efforts also gave the offense time to work. More to the point, they collectively gave Robert Moore time to work. 

The Arkansas second baseman got the scoring started in the 2nd with a no-doubt home run to right field on a 97 mph fastball from South Carolina righthander Thomas Farr, who had quickly retired the first five batters he’d faced prior to Moore stepping to the plate. 

In the seventh, with the game tied 1-1, he did it again, this time a two-run shot, immediately after Monke got out of the sixth inning jam. It was, once again, clear it was gone off the bat, Moore again knew it when he hit it and the ball getting caught up in the trees behind the right field fence is likely the only thing that kept it from leaving the stadium altogether. 

Moore, already a player predisposed to showing emotion, showed a lot of it coming around the bases on the second round-tripper. 

“I would say I was more fired up tonight just because my grandparents live here, and my grandfather is actually in the hospital right now, so I knew he was watching the game, and I just really wanted to play well, make him smile or something. So I had to have a little bit of an edge tonight,” Moore said. 

It’s been a process for Moore to get going in SEC play. In Arkansas’ first conference series of the year against Alabama, he went 0-for-11. But his production has improved as the weeks have gone on. Last weekend against Texas A&M, he hit his first two home runs in SEC play, and with a two-hit game on Thursday, he now has at least one two-hit game in each of the last three SEC series. 

“His development, it’s week to week,” Van Horn said. “I just see him getting better and better. He’s confident and he’s always been confident, but he’s never really failed before throughout summer ball and travel ball, all that, and he gets here, played 16 games last year and he really didn’t fail. He finally failed, and it got to him a little bit, but he got out of it, and now he’s swinging the bat extremely well, he’s confident.”

With the lead now secured after the top of the seventh inning, it was time for righthander Kevin Kopps to play his role, the same one he has played all season, that of the lockdown reliever. And he played it to perfection. 

Whereas the first three pitchers were effective if not dominant, Kopps was nothing but dominant in his outing. He threw three perfect innings, striking out six along the way, and by throwing just 34 pitches to get the final nine outs, he made himself available to throw again in Friday’s doubleheader. 

When Monke got out of that jam in the bottom of the sixth and Moore quickly made it a 3-1 game with his second home run, the air seemed to come out of the South Carolina balloon, but even if that hadn’t been the case, it’s not clear the Gamecocks would have had any more of a shot against Kopps, who was carving up the lineup with his trademark cutter. 

“Pretty good,” Van Horn said, with a wry smile on his face. “I don’t know if it’s his best stuff, but if it’s not, it was real good.”

Suffice it to say that Moore and his teammates were confident with Kopps on the mound, especially after he very nearly threw an immaculate inning in the seventh. 

“You don’t want to say it’s over, but we felt like it was over,” Moore said. 

As good as Kopps was on Thursday, and he was excellent, it’s just a continuation of what he’s done all season long. In 38 innings, he has a 0.95 ERA and 66 strikeouts, and he’s been a big reason why Arkansas can feel so comfortable building out pitching plans from back to front. 

In a perfect world, would Arkansas like to get the type of start most teams look for in series openers, the type that gets you deep into the contest with minimal bullpen usage? Probably, but they get it done this way just fine, with a line of pitchers all ready to punch in for their shift, do the dirty work and punch out for the next guy to do the same.