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Gibler Becomes Pitcher Arkansas Waiting for Biggest Takeaway in Win

Six innings, one hit, zero Missouri runners past second base and Gibler delivered best start of Razorback career
Andy Hodges|
Arkansas Razorbacks pitcher Cole Gibler against Missouri.
Arkansas Razorbacks pitcher Cole Gibler against Missouri. | Arkansas Communications

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Arkansas Razorbacks

There's a certain kind of baseball team that wins because one thing is working really well.

It could be the pitching ace is dealing. Maybe the cleanup hitter is locked in. It has been the closer is unhittable. Pull that one thread and the whole thing unravels.

Arkansas isn't that team.

What the Razorbacks showed Friday night in Columbia, Mo., in a 6-0 series-clinching win over Missouri wasn't a performance built around one dominant element.

It was simply a team that can win with pitching, the long ball, beat you with a pinch hitter off the bench and beat you on the basepaths ... sometimes all in the same game.

That's what makes the Razorbacks genuinely dangerous down the stretch of an SEC season, and that's the story I keep coming back to when I look at what has happened in Missouri.

As bad as the Tigers have been this season, you can't forget to factor in their lack of wins in the SEC this year.

But the Hogs handled it the way fans were probably expecting.

Three things drove it home for me.

TAKEAWAY No. 1: The Pitching Depth Is Real

Cole Gibler didn't just pitch well Friday night. He pitched like somebody who's earned the right to be trusted with a big road start.

Six innings. One hit. Five strikeouts. Not a single Missouri runner reached second base while he was on the mound.

But here's what I want you to notice beyond the numbers.

Gibler had to sit in the dugout for the better part of 30 minutes in the sixth inning while Arkansas pushed across three runs to make it 5-0. Extended breaks kill rhythm.

They mess with mechanics. They give young pitchers too much time to think. Gibler came back out and retired the side.

Then Steele Eaves came in for the final three innings and was equally sharp. One hit allowed. A strikeout on a wicked slider in the eighth.

His first save of the season and his first career save as a Razorback.

Eaves had been working through a rough patch in his recent conference outings and nobody was sure what version of him would show up in a meaningful road game.

The good version showed up.

When your starter gives you six strong innings and your long reliever locks the door behind him, that's not a rotation getting hot at the right time.

That's pitching depth doing what pitching depth is supposed to do. Arkansas has that right now and it's a weapon that's going to matter in May.

TAKEAWAY 2: Camden Kozeal, Zack Stewart Different Kinds of Weapons

Brady Kehlenbrink had Arkansas completely off balance through three innings.

Seven strikeouts. No walks. Two balls put in play total. He was attacking the zone and the Razorbacks weren't doing a thing with it.

Then Camden Kozeal hit a baseball over the right field wall in the fourth inning — his 12th home run of the season — and the whole complexion of the game changed.

One swing. He's not sneaking up on anybody anymore at this point in the season. Pitchers know what he can do and he's still doing it.

But the moment I keep rewinding in my head from Friday night isn't the home run. It's the sixth inning, bases loaded, and Dave Van Horn sending Zack Stewart to the plate as a pinch hitter.

Stewart lined a single to shallow center field and scored two runs to push the lead to 5-0. It put the game away.

In that situation, you need a player who can come off the bench cold, in a crucial spot on the road and deliver. Stewart did exactly that.

Kozeal gives you the lightning. Stewart gives you the hammer when you need it. This Hogs team can threaten you with both and opposing pitching staffs can't gameplan around easily.

Missouri found that out the hard way Friday night.

TAKEAWAY 3: Baserunning Isn't a Bonus, It's a Weapon.

Four stolen bases. Nolan Souza. Reese Robinett. Maika Niu. TJ Pompey.

Different runners, different situations, same result. The Razorbacks kept constant pressure on a Missouri pitching staff that was slow to the plate and paid for it repeatedly.

This doesn't get enough attention when people talk about what makes the Razorbacks click. The home runs get the highlights.

The pitching lines get the analysis. But the baserunning is a quiet, consistent force multiplier for this lineup, and Friday night in Columbia it showed up in ways that directly put runs on the board.

Souza reached on an error in the eighth, stole second and scored on Robinett's single up the middle. Without the stolen base, Robinett's hit might've scored nobody.

Instead it made it 6-0. Those kinds of chain reactions don't happen by accident. They happen because this team is aggressive on the bases and disciplined enough to pick the right moments.

The Hogs left 10 runners on base Friday, which'll get covered when Van Horn gets around to breaking down this game with the players.

They advanced runners when the game demanded it and never let a pitching staff that started hot dictate the terms for nine full innings. That's a team playing with confidence.

Arkansas is 11-9 in the SEC and has a chance to sweep Missouri Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. on the SEC Network.

After what I watched Friday night, the question isn't whether the Razorbacks are capable of winning that game.

The question is which version of their offense Missouri's going to have to stop and whether the Tigers have an answer for all of them.

My guess? They don't.

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Andy Hodges
ANDY HODGES

Sports columnist, writer, former radio host and television host who has been expressing an opinion on sports in the media for over four decades. He has been at numerous media stops in Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi.

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