By NATE ALLEN
FAYETTEVILLE – Unlike last year, D.J. Baxendale won’t be rescuing Arkansas in the loser’s bracket of the NCAA Baseball Regionals.
Arkansas’ ace, 7-4, 3.02 ERA, will pitch Friday’s opener for the second-seeded Razorbacks, 39-19, against the third-seeded Sam Houston State Bearkats, 38-20, in the 4-team double-elimination regional in Houston hosted by the top-seeded Conference USA champion Rice Owls, 40-17.
Rice opens Friday night against fourth-seeded Southwest Athletic Conference champion Prairie View A&M, 28-23.
The tournament continues with losers’ and winners’ bracket games Saturday and concludes either Sunday night or Monday depending if the survivor from Sunday afternoon’s loser’s bracket team can win Sunday night’s game.
In last year’s Tempe Regional hosted by Arizona State, Arkansas Coach Dave Van Horn “pitched off” in the opener against No. 3 seeded Charlotte.
He presumed to save Baxendale for the next evening’s winner’s bracket game versus Arizona State.
Unfortunately, Baxendale, a 2009 graduate of Sylvan Hills High School, never faced Arizona State. Charlotte whipped Arkansas, compelling Van Horn to use Baxendale to beat No. 4 seed New Mexico in the loser’s bracket, spending him before Arizona State eliminated Arkansas the next night in the championship game.
“We’ll throw D.J. game one,” Van Horn said Monday after the pairings were announced. “We’ve got to win game one. He’s throwing the best for us right now and we can’t look past anybody. Sam Houston State is going to take an hour bus-ride from their place to the park. They played Rice probably a couple of times this year. They’re familiar with the area. We’ve got to go down there and play our best game in game one.”
The strategy of pitching Baxendale Friday and Ryne Stanek, 6-4, 3.09, Saturday looks better for the short run, Van Horn said, and maybe even the long run, too.
“He has been more consistent down the stretch than anybody,” Van Horn said of Baxendale, his junior right-hander from Jacksonville.” He’s also the most resilient. If we pitch him Friday and there was a Monday game, D.J. would probably want to pitch a little bit. And he could do it.”
Baxendale likes being on opening day notice.
“It’s good knowing I’m going to go the first game,” Baxendale said. “Sam Houston State’s a great team. So we’re going to try and go in there and get after them right away, and then we’ll go from there.”
Van Horn isn’t as concerned about his starting pitchers Friday and Saturday as he is about the left-hander often summoned first to relieve them.
Junior southpaw Cade Lynch of Jonesboro, 3-1, 2.11 with 46 strikeouts in 47 innings, missed both the Razorbacks SEC Tournament losses to Mississippi State and Ole Miss last week in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, Ala., because of migraine headaches.
“Cade Lynch was in the hospital the whole time we were in Birmingham because of the headaches,” Van Horn said Monday. “It was bad.”
Lynch hasn’t pitched since winning the May 18 game against Tennessee in relief, falling victim to one of his reoccurring migraines the following day.
What will Van Horn do if there’s a need for a lefty. His other four main pitchers are all right-handed.
“I don’t know,” Van Horn said. “That hurts us. That’s a big issue. To bring him in off of those right-handers is such a different look. We need him. Since Birmingham he hasn’t done anything but play a little catch and just try and feel better, but he is definitely going to go with us if they let him travel.”
While disappointed with the two and through at Hoover, Van Horn said there could be some benefits missing the last four days of the SEC Tournament that Mississippi State won Sunday.
It gave ailing infielders Matt Reynolds (elbow) and Tim Carver (hand) and outfielder Derrick Bleeker (hand) and Lynch extra time to heal and also, Van Horn said, enabled him to practice the Hogs “hard but not long,” an ideal combination both to sharpen and rest them, he said.
