Baxendale great as starter and finisher

FAYETTEVILLE — From All-American Tim Lollar in 1978 through All-SEC Drew Smyly last season, the Arkansas Razorbacks have armed themselves with many great pitchers.

Add DJ Baxendale to the list of great ones.

Considering how he just from start to finish willed these rebuilding Razorbacks to a SEC West championship, Baxendale deserves ranking right up there with Lollar, Steve Krueger, Phil Stidham, David Walling and Charlie Isaacson, Nick Schmidt and Jess Todd.

All were All-Americans. Baxendale is not - yet.

But the UA sophomore and Sylvan Hills grad is all everything to these ragtag Razorbacks. These are Razorbacks reinvented from losing the bulk of their teams that went tothe 2009 College World Series and 2010 Super Regionals. Yet they just won the West which those teams could not.

Baxendale, 8-2, 1.62 ERA and three saves, is this team’s best starter and best closer. He proved that again in the final regular SEC season series that Arkansas completed with a 2-0, 5-3 doubleheader sweep over Ole Miss on Saturday at Baum Stadium.

On Thursday night, Baxendale started a brilliant 8 1/3 innings against Ole Miss and lost a 2-1 heartbreaker.

Time for him to ice that rightarm for Wednesday’s start of the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala.

Except if the Hogs couldn’t sweep Saturday’s doubleheader, there would be no SEC Tournament for them.

Arkansas had to beat Ole Miss again. Otherwise instead of finishing a game ahead of the three closed second best in the West, Arkansas, and now fifth-place Ole Miss would have joined Alabama, Auburn and Mississippi State in a 5-way championship tie with the Hogs left home on the tiebreakers.

So clinging to a 5-3 lead with two on and none out in Saturday’s final inning, anguishing Coach Dave Van Horn summoned Baxendale to close.

Even from a volunteer so tough and so willing, Van Horn and pitching coach Dave Jorn knew they likely asked too much too soon.

“I was nauseated putting him in the game,” Van Horn said. “I did not want to pitch him. But it came down to winning the West by ourselves ornot going to the tournament, and DJ told me before the game, ‘I’ve got one good inning in me.’ I said, ‘I’ll put your name in at the bottom of the list and I’ll circle it and he came in and got it done for us.”

With winning reliever Barrett Astin on fumes trying to stretch four fine scoreless innings into five after closing Saturday’s first game for winning starter Randall Fant, Baxendale begged permission to warm up.

“Coach Jorn told me to get down there,” Baxendale said, “and that’s the fastest I ever sprinted from the dugout to the bullpen. It’s unreal the coaches have that much trust in me.”

It would be unreal if they didn’t, asserts catcher James McCann.

“What he did today is ridiculous,” McCann said. “He pitched 81/3 two days ago and comes in and gets the save today. He’s the leader of our staff. There’s no one else you want on the mound in that situation.”