Pitching Staff's Consistency Giving Van Horn Confidence
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — There have been times Arkansas hasn't hit particularly well, but the starting pitchers have bailed them out.
The Razorbacks, 16-3 overall (3-0 in the SEC) have been using Connor Noland, Hagen Smith and Jaxon Wiggins in that order to start games.
All have come up strong, especially in the league-opening sweep over Kentucky this past weekend.
The entire staff has a 2.95 team ERA, 13th in the country.
But it's the three-day starter rotation that is jump-starting things.
They are all lasting at least five innings and not wearing out the bullpen early.
Here's what Dave Van Horn said at his press conference Wednesday about the starting rotation:
On Connor Noland
Arkansas Communications
"He embraces it," Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. "He wants the ball on Friday night, and he knows how important that game is. Win or lose, if your Friday night starter can give you some quality innings or a quality start — maybe even seven innings — you can save the bullpen even if you lose the game.
"I think he’s done a tremendous job there. What have we had, five weekends here? And he’s given us five really good starts and taken us to his pitch count pretty much every time and given us a chance to win the game. That’s all you can ask for out of a guy that goes out in the first game of the weekend."
On Hagen Smith
Michael Morrison / allHOGS Images
"He's very confident when he's on the mound. He’s a quiet kid. He’s not going to start too many conversations with coaches. We’ve got to go up and talk to him, and he’ll talk with us great. But when he gets the ball on the mound, he thinks that he’s pretty good, and that's because he is.
"He’s tough enough to get through some of those bad times. You saw a bit of his competitiveness the other day when he gave up the home run and there was a little bit of chirping and hooting and hollering. He didn’t like it. The next guy caps one back to him, and he ran him all the way down the line before he flipped it. I loved it. Then when he got the next guy out, he didn’t point at their dugout, he pointed at our dugout. He’ll stir it up a little bit. He showed me something there that he’s not going to back down. I love that."
On Jaxon Wiggins
Michael Morrison / allHOGS Images
"He doesn't get rattled. I think for him, it's part of his DNA, man. He trusts his stuff. He knows that when runners are on base, it doesn’t mean they’re going to score. He had at least one runner on base in I think every inning his last start, and he pitched really well. We made a couple of nice plays behind him. It all added up to them not scoring.
"It’s been fun watching him get better because in the fall, it was a little bit slower development. We’re thinking ‘when’s this guy going to come on with that breaking pitch, little more command.’ After the holidays you could see it, and then it just seems to get better and better. And what we love about him is he doesn’t lose his stuff. No matter what that scoreboard is telling you, he’s throwing mid-90s, maybe a little more when he wants to even in the sixth and seventh inning. He’s strong."
The Hogs will look to keep their momentum rolling this weekend as they travel to Columbia, Mo., against the Missouri Tigers in a three-game series.
Game two of the series on Saturday will be televised nationally on SEC Network, and the other two games will be on SEC Network Plus. First pitch on Friday is set for 6 p.m.
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