Beyond the Box: Diamond Hogs beat Illinois State, but injuries are beginning to pile up
The No. 9 Arkansas Razorbacks (6-2) were able to hold off a stingy Illinois State team in their lone midweek matchup on Wednesday afternoon. Once again, star sophomore Kendall Diggs delivered a walk-off double in the 11th inning to give the Diamond Hogs a 10-9 win.
Walking out of Baum Stadium was great, but it came after Arkansas blew a 9-7 ninth-inning lead and saw star closer Brady Tygart leave with an arm injury.
“There was a lot of excitement and that went into ‘oh no’ and then an injury,” Dave Van Horn said after the game. “But I thought we held it together, we stayed strong in the dugout and they fought.”
Arkansas will now have Thursday off before beginning their weekend series against Wright State (2-5). The series is set to begin on Friday at 3:00 p.m., but might be subject to postponement due to inclement weather in Northwest Arkansas.
Before moving ahead to Wright State, let’s take a look at some things that stood out in the Razorbacks’ 10-9 win over Illinois State on Wednesday.
The injury bug has struck Arkansas baseball
(Photo by Chris Jones – USA TODAY Sports)
Arkansas athletics haven’t been able to catch a break in any of the three major sports when it comes to injuries in the 2022-2023 seasons. After a football and basketball season filled with key injuries leading to disappointing results, it looks as if Arkansas fans might be in for more of the same with Razorback baseball.
Before the season even began, Arkansas announced that projected ace and starter right-handed pitcher Jaxon Wiggins would miss the entire season with an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery. Then, this past Sunday against Eastern Illinois, corner infielder Ben McLaughlin suffered a knee injury that Dave Van Horn provided an update on Tuesday evening.
“McLaughlin’s going to have surgery on Thursday to fix that knee up a little bit,” Van Horn said. “If it’s minor, it’ll be three weeks. If it’s a little more, it’ll probably be five or six weeks.”
That brings us to Wednesday’s game against Illinois State where Brady Tygart suffered an apparent right elbow injury after throwing his 11th pitch in the ninth inning. Van Horn didn’t have an update, but to the viewers at home it didn’t look very good.
Arkansas’ bullpen is already on shaky ground and losing Tygart would be a huge blow. The thought of having another potentially special season be derailed by injuries is frustrating, but hopefully this is the extent of it.
Arkansas' bullpen looking for answers
(Photo by Chris Jones – USA TODAY Sports)
Arkansas’ bullpen completely imploded in their 13-2 loss to Eastern Illinois on Sunday, and has looked shaky at times this season. The injuries to Wiggins and possibly Tygart means that someone in the bullpen is going to have step up.
Van Horn went with the decision of starting [autotag]Zach Morris[/autotag] to try and get him going after Morris struggled in his first few outings of the season. Unfortunately, those struggles continued as he gave up two earned runs, five hits and a walk all in one inning of work. He was pulled after giving up three consecutive hits in the second inning.
“Morris didn’t get off to a good start, so that was a little hard to swallow,” Van Horn said. “I wanted to give him the ball, give him the opportunity to get out there and start a game, get it going a little bit, and he got three outs, gave up five hits and it just wasn’t going good.”
However, it wasn’t all bad. Right-handers [autotag]Dylan Carter[/autotag] and [autotag]Cody Adcock[/autotag] both had very solid outings on Tuesday which was encouraging to see. Dave Van Horn had mentioned in his Eastern Illinois postgame presser that he only had about four and a half pitchers that he could trust, so he needed some other guys to show him something.
There are still plenty of question marks that Van Horn and the Diamond Hogs are still looking to answer early in the season, but there’s also plenty of time to figure it out before conference play begins.
Kendall Diggs continue to be the hero
(Photo by AP Photo – Michael Woods)
For the second time this season, Kendall Diggs was able to give the Hogs a walk-off victory. The first time was against Eastern Illinois last weekend where he knocked in a homerun in the seventh-inning to give the Hogs a 13-2 run-rule victory.
Diggs is starting to be comfortable in this spot. He was able to crank a true three-run walk-off homer against Ole Miss in April of last season and already has two walk-offs this season.
He finished Wednesday afternoon 3-for-5 with a pair of doubles and the lone homerun. [autotag]Jared Wegner[/autotag] led the way for the Diamond Hogs with three hits, three RBIs and a homerun of his own, but Diggs provided the heroics in the 11th inning.
The Razorbacks’ lineup is littered with stud hitters, like Jared Wegner, [autotag]Peyton Stovall[/autotag] and [autotag]Tavian Josenberger[/autotag], but Diggs is the headliner of the bunch. He’s becoming the difference-maker the Arkansas offense will need this summer. There are plenty of question marks when it comes to Arkansas’ bullpen, but so far there aren’t many glaring weakness with their offense. Hopefully that continues as we march forward this season.
