By Walter Woodie
Special to the Arkansas News Bureau
FAYETTEVILLE — For a change, No. 13 Arkansas jumped out to an early lead instead of coming from behind.
The Razorbacks, keyed by a three-run home run by designated hitter Jake Wise, built a six-run led by the third inning and cruised to a 6-1 win over Mississippi State on Saturday night at Baum Stadium.
The victory moved the Hogs into first place in the SEC West race. Arkansas (26-8, 8-6) has won six straight conference games to leap ahead of Alabama, which was swept by Tennessee Saturday and has lost six of seven SEC games.
“We have so much season left to get too excited,” Razorbacks coach Dave Van Horn said. “It’s nice to have won this series, but we need to win (today).”
Wise, in his first SEC start as a designated hitter, belted a 1-1 pitch over 400 feet just left of center field to give the Hogs the early 6-0 lead that the Bulldogs (21-14, 5-9) never seriously threatened.
The homer capped a five-run third that also had an RBI single by Dominic Ficociello and an RBI sacrifice fly by Kyle Robinson.
“(Against Missouri State) Jake went 3-for-3 and I thought he deserved a shot,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “He really came through with that home run. We did a lot of things well that inning and the home run came with two outs. What looked to be a good inning turned into a great inning with one swing.”
Wise, who is the backup catcher to James McCann, said he thought he would be able to play with a left-hander throwing. Van Horn told Wise Saturday morning he would start at DH.
“I’ve been waiting for a chance to play for a while,” Wise said. “I knew I had to take advantage of my opportunity. I saw a lot of fastballs early in the count and I got ahead in the count, I looked for one and got it.”
Of the three Arkansas pitchers, reliever Barrett Astin (4-1) was the most effective. Astin replaced starter Randall Fant in the fifth and recorded all 10 of his outs via strikeout. Bulldog starter Nick Routt (0-2) gave up all six Hog runs in three innings of work.
“Our pitching was outstanding,” Van Horn said. “Fant just ran out of gas in the fifth. Barrett then came in and did a tremendous job. McCann pointed out to me that all of the outs were strikeouts … we didn’t field one ball. He gave us a chance to get through the middle innings and secure the win.”
Astin said the five-run cushion give him a chance to relax a bit on the mound.
“I threw some pitches I may not have thrown in a closer game,” said Astin. “I was able to locate my pitches pretty good.”
After wasting a leadoff double in the first, Arkansas took a 1-0 lead in the second on Jarrod McKinney’s two-out single to center, scoring McCann, who had doubled and later stole third.
“McKinney’s hit was big because we already left a runner stranded on third in the first,” Van Horn said. “The only disappointing part was we had a couple of leadoff doubles and left those runners on base. We’ve got to get those runs home.”
The attendance for the game was 10,784, the third largest in the history of Baum Stadium.
Arkansas will go for its second straight SEC conference sweep at 1:05 today against the Bulldogs. Van Horn said either D.J. Baxendale or Ryne Stanek will start on the mound for the Hogs.
