A swing and a miss, a swing and a miss, another swing and a miss, that pretty much describes the Razorbacks last night against LSU's Coleman who lived up to his SEC pitcher of the year billing and defeated the Razorbacks once again this season. He didn't exactly limit the Hogs to two hits like the previous outing in Fayetteville, but it mattered little because the Hogs were giving up home runs and just runs left and right in a 9-1 defeat.
That end result puts LSU in a good place to reach the championship bracket. The Hogs will have to defeat Virginia on Wednesday night and then beat LSU twice. All LSU has to do is win one more game against either us or Virginia. In the CWS, you really are in the driver's seat if you win those first two games. The ESPN stat of the night that I saw as I was watching the Hogs go out with a whimper is that 17 of the last 19 champions won their first two games. Ouch.
The Hogs will have to battle against two good baseball teams and some stiff odds to get to the championship bracket. I am not counting them out, but I can't count them "in" as much as I could before Coleman got his claws into them. I am pretty sure Dave Van Horn is going to be heard uttering these words a lot today, "One game at a time, men." If the Hogs start thinking too far ahead about the hill they have to climb, they'll psych themselves out of it for sure. For both Arkansas and Virginia, a lot depends upon which team has the best psychologist as coach.
I think a lot of Hog fans were not feeling too good about this game going into it. And I think a lot of us were thinking the same thing, "Uh Oh, an SEC team." That's been the trend this year in all three major sports. We've done well in out of conference play, but have struggled with our fellow SEC brethern. I also was not feeling good in the gut about Eibner at the mound. That feeling got confirmed, unfortunately, from the get-go. Forrest put in some good innings, and you have to wonder if he had started and the Tigers hadn't gotten ahead so quickly so early things might have gone differently, or at least not as badly.
I am off to watch on youtube London Crawford catching that pass from Casey Dick. After a night of too much going right for the purple and gold, I think it is just the pick me up I need.