Arkansas gets much needed rest ahead of facing SEC's cream of the crop

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Forty-one games into the season, Arkansas has hit a wall. Playing 66 innings of baseball from Friday to Friday is similar to a MLB workload.

It's a harsh set of circumstances dealt to the Hogs due to weather and a switch from a Friday-Sunday series to a Thursday-Saturday series.

The Hogs are just 3-4 in that stretch and have lost its first SEC series at Baum-Walker Stadium since 2022.

The Razorbacks losing an SEC series at home is not something that happens very often.
The last time was three years ago in 2022. The last time before that was three years earlier in 2019.

Unrelated, the last two years that Arkansas made it to Omaha were 2022 & 2019.
— Cory Stewart (@Stewhog) April 19, 2025

Coach Dave Van Horn admitted that his team could be feeling the effects of a lot of baseball in a truncated timeline after the Razorbacks lost the series finale 9-2 against Texas A&M.

"You could tell our guys were tired," Van Horn said. "The second game, they were tired. We were hoping that we could get through it, find a way to win it. But they, you know, you could say they were just a little bit tardy with some swings. But A&M, they’re really good. We just didn’t finish today."

The schedule only becomes tougher for Arkansas down the stretch. The Hogs first play its first double midweek in about a month and a half against Arkansas-Little Rock. It's also a team that has beaten the Hogs twice since the series started in 2019, including most recently in 2023.

Arkansas' closing SEC slate is arguably four of the toughest teams in the conference. Van Horn admitted that catching teams at the wrong time could be an issue.

Arkansas could be feeling some deja vu after running into a hot Texas A&M team after a slow start. Now is a bad a time as any to catch Florida.

Pending the result of the series finale against Mississippi State, Florida could be welcoming the Razorbacks to town Friday off back-to-back conference sweeps after starting the season 1-11 in SEC play.

It's a similar route that the Gators took to the semifinals of the College World Series in 2024, finishing 28-26 overall in the regular season, including 13-17 in conference play before catching fire down the stretch under coach Kevin O'Sullivan.

Arkansas won the SEC West but was bounced from its home regional for the second straight season.

Despite Florida's recent hot stretch, they are the easiest team by record remaining on Arkansas' schedule outside of Little Rock and Missouri State, the last midweek games of the season.

The Razorbacks will likely need to sweep No. 1 Texas at home to have any shot of winning the first 16-team SEC title. After the Longhorns swept a fellow top-10 team in Auburn, they are now three games clear of Arkansas at 16-2.

The Razorbacks by dropping another series has allowed the chasing pack to close within a game for second.

The top four teams this year receive a double-bye in this year's single-elimination confernce tournament.

Arkansas then closes the season with likely back-to-back top 10 teams in LSU and Tennessee.

The Razorbacks will get relief from their fatigue with three days off, but the schedule that lays in front after the hiatus will lay more challenges than playing seven games in eight days.

First pitch against Little Rock is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and will be streamed on SEC+.

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