No. 5 Arkansas (41-9, 18-7 SEC) pulled out a stressful series-opening victory over the No. 14 Mississippi State Bulldogs (32-17, 14-11 SEC), 7-5, on Friday night in Baum-Walker Stadium. The Razorbacks protect their first-place lead in the Southeastern Conference Western Division while grabbing their 18th conference win of the season.
Hagen Smith did well in his 13th start of the year on the hill but struggled with command on his fastball. He hurled five frames while allowing three runs, four hits and four walks with 11 punch outs for his 10th double-digit strikeout performance of the year on 94 pitches (58 strikes). The Bullard (Texas) native has a career strikeout total of 335 and is 10 away from tying Nick Schmidt (345) for most strikeouts in program history.
“It wasn’t one of his better ones,” Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn said. “He gets two strikes on the leadoff hitter and ends up walking him. Then he walks the next batter and you’re thinking, ‘Wow, he’s going to throw a lot of pitches and isn’t going to be in the game very long. I think he threw 30 pitches in the first inning and they didn’t score on him. And like Hagen seems to be able to do, his stuff is so good, he went through the middle of that order and got us back in the dugout. But that’s through 30 pitches. The second inning he threw six and we’re like, ‘OK, we’re back on track.’ And we’re probably going to get six, maybe seven out of him. We only got five.”
