Crowd Close Second to Smith in Story of Win Over Oregon State
ARLINGTON, Texas – What a scene last night at Globe Life Field.
Everything about the showdown between what Baseball America considers the No. 3 and No. 4 teams in the country in Arkansas and Oregon State screamed elite level baseball in much the same vein as when the college baseball world watched LSU vs. Wake Forest and LSU vs. Florida in the College World Series last year.
Elite Crowd
These neutral site games are often fun events, but attendance and atmosphere often struggles to come close to what Arkansas sees at Baum-Walker in the heart of the season despite have late SEC schedule level opponents. However, Friday night was the exception.
Considering the drive and length of flights from the Great Northwest, Oregon bringing a few thousand fans for a Friday night was impressive. What's more is they brought an energy with them that helped whip up the Arkansas crowd a bit more than they already were.
While the players aren't affected much by the 2018 foul ball drop that kept Dave Van Horn from getting a well-deserved national championship and serves as the only blemish on SEC dominance the past eight years, fans from both sides of the foul lines certainly are. Oregon State fans know it's a sore subject and love to rub it in.
During the second inning, Ryder Helfrick launched a towering pop-up in foul territory that looked like a perfect recreation of the infamous 2018 drop as three Beavers went for it deep behind first base just outside the foul line. However, Oregon State managed to catch it as they avoided running over each other.
Immediately, Arkansas fans started taking it in the shorts as they were trolled by Beaver fans. Here's a text received shortly after from one Razorbacks fan.
"OSU fans trolling us. Saying "That's how you catch a foul ball." Complete with palm in face emoji at the end.
Of course, the foul ball trolling didn't start with taunts in the bottom of the second. It began the moment Oregon State fans stepped out of their rental cars in the parking lot.
Here's another text from a fan describing a shirt that even Arkansas fans, as connoisseurs of high quality baseball enthusiasm can fully appreciate.
"Fan has a shirt that says 'THE FOUL BALL THAT CHANGED IT ALL. 2018 NATTY'"
However, while Hog fans didn't have much to work with from six years ago, there was plenty to work with in the moment. First off, in my almost 30 years of doing this, that was the largest regular season neutral site crowd I have ever seen from a single team.
The official attendance indicates there were roughly 11,000 Arkansas fans there, but visually, it looked like a lot more. The two lower levels were packed behind the plate and along each baseline. However, Hog fans took up almost that entire area outside of a pocket of orange in the lowest deck behind third base.
Beyond that. Razorback red was present in every section rather extensively all the way around the entire perimeter of the stadium in the first two decks. There were so many Arkansas fans, they carried four decks deep in some areas. And we're not talking a cursory sprinkle of people just looking to get away from the crowd. It was a legit grouping of fans.
Keep in mind this is a Friday game. Most of these were people who either took off work and drove down, worked a half day and did their best Smokey and the Bandit imitation, or coughed up the money to fly.
They got started early. Like an entire game early. The Michigan vs. Oklahoma State game was regularly interrupted by Hog calls, which should add a little juice to tonight's game.
Smith Gives Them a Reason to Cheer
The entire time Hagan Smith was on the mound just plowing through Arkansas pitching records like a perfectly thrown bowling ball, it was deafening. I was in Globe Life last year as the Texas Rangers made their push to clinch a spot in the playoffs, and there were times the Razorback faithful pushed close to the range of those crowds for noise.
With each strikeout they got louder, and Smith gave them plenty to ramp things up. He fanned Beaver hitters for the first 15 outs of the game, a total that nearly doubled the previous record of nine. The streak was broken on a ridiculous play from Peyton Holt diving hard to his right behind second base and throwing a dart to first against his body from the ground. Smith the struck out the next two for yet another school record – 17 strikeouts in a game.
And while Smith built the pressure with his machine-like performance, it was Ben McLaughlin who blew the top off with a hard line drive to center with bases loaded with two outs. Here's how it went down in our live blog.
And here's the moment Hog fans have been waiting for. McLaughlin lays into a pitch deep to center. The outfield is playing up and this sails over their heads and short hops the 407 sign and almost skips over the wall. Three runs score as McLaughlin is in with a double and it's deafening.
Deafening is accurate. Sitting in the open air press box high in the rafters, it physically hurt for a moment. The screams drilled into the ear drums like a sonic attack.
Time for Retaliate
In the sixth inning, a key moment involving a routine pop-up gave Arkansas fans the weapon they needed to fight back and also the opportunity that ultimately determined the entire game for Van Horn's team. First, here's how it was described in the blog, and then after, the missing context between the lines will be filled in.
Helfrick skies a bomb of a pop-up. It misses a beam in the top of the stadium by inches. There it gets lost and drops where the grass and dirt meet in front of third and he has time to get all the way to second before it drops. Then, the local kid, Jayson Jones, singles a grounder to center field. Helfrick crashes and burns halfway to home plate, but is able to get up and score to make it 4-0 Hogs.
So, here's what's missing. It was an insane pop-up of titanic proportions. The ball probably disappeared on Oregon State for a moment as the rafters and lighting obscured it.
That brief moment was enough for third baseman Trent Caraway to lose its tracking. When it came crashing to earth at a high velocity, he didn't have time to adjust and found himself smashing flat upon his back like he just got hit by an old school clothesline.
Having grown tired of the taunting throughout the game from Beavers fans, the Razorbacks crowd began hitting them back with verbal jabs about not being able to catch pop-ups. It ratcheted up even more after Helfrick recovered from his spinout to put Arkansas up 4-0.
Final Thoughts
This was a game that was worth every bit of effort it took into making it and for fans of both sides to get to Dallas-Fort Worth to see it. Both Smith and Oregon State pitcher Aiden May sparkled in a MLB level duel amid a College World Series atmosphere. It may have been February, but everything from the warm temperatures outside to the back and forth refusal to lose taking place on the field felt like a college baseball playoff game.
If these two teams can stay healthy, there is a good chance they meet in Omaha. The way the Beavers are constructed, no one is going to beat them in a three-game series.
The only program built to have a chance is Arkansas. Oregon State will lose a few Game 1 situations, but the Razorbacks are likely the only team with the starting depth to pull out one of the final two games.
It's a shame it wasn't on television for the world to see, but for those who did, it's a game that won't soon be forgotten. It's not quite the 2018 game because of the stakes that were on the line, but it was about as good as it gets in the regular season.
HOG FEED:
HISTORIC OUTING BY SMITH HIGHLIGHTS WIN OVER NO. 4 OREGON STATE
FORMER RAZORBACK PLAYER LANDS ON DETROIT PISTONS ROSTER WITH THE TWO-YEAR STANDARD NBA DEAL
IF IT WEREN'T FOR TEXAS ARROGANCE, HOGS WOULD BE WHERE OREGON STATE WILL BE IN FEBRUARY
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