With 48 victories and the school’s second runner-up finish in the College World Series, there are so many good things to remember about the 2018 Arkansas baseball team.
Unfortunately, the legacy of perhaps the best all-time team will be what didn’t happen when there was a chance to close on a national championship. A two-out, two-strike pop foul fell when the Hogs were leading 3-2, and it quickly turned into a 5-3 Oregon State victory.
Just one strike away on Wednesday night, the Razorbacks never seemed like a threat in the second title game on Thursday. Oregon State scored two in the first inning and slid through a bases-loaded jam in the Arkansas third to dominate in a 5-0 victory Thursday.
It was Oregon State’s third national title. The Beavers also won in 2006 and 2007. The Hogs, second in 1979, are still looking for their first.
Catcher Grant Koch, the team captain, gave the Hogs a spark in that third with a lead-off double. His smash off the middle of the wall in left turned out to be the only time they would be close to a run.
Eric Cole reached with a one-out walk, and Casey Martin beat out a tap to third. That rally died on the next two at-bats when Heston Kjerstad and Luke Bonfield, the three and four spots in the lineup, struck out and lined out softly to right field.
Arkansas had only two hits against freshman right-hander Kevin Abel, who threw a complete game, struck out 10 and handed the Razorbacks’ their only shutout loss of the year.
“I thought that obviously Abel was incredible, mixing that fastball, 90, 92 miles an hour, with that plus change-up,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “And just showing that fastball enough that kept us out front, breaking ball was good. Didn’t throw it a lot, but it really had depth. Just kept us off balance.
“And he got ahead of hitters. Some of it is we were chasing. Some of it he just spotted it up pretty good. And we had one opportunity to get him, really, when you look back at the nine innings, I think it was in the third, we had the bases loaded, we were down 2-0.”
That was the only trouble Abel would face. He improved to 8-1, including five victories in the NCAA tournament. He got LSU in the NCAA Corvallis Regional. He got both victories over the Hogs in Omaha, where he was 4-0 with a 0.86 ERA.
Abel was the beneficiary of the Beavers’ three-run ninth off Arkansas closer Matt Cronin on Wednesday when he allowed one hit in a 23-pitch relief outing.
It won’t be what Arkansas fans will remember, especially the several thousand who left after Wednesday night when the TD Ameritrade Park was a sea of red. The outfield general admission section was nowhere near full Thursday.
No doubt, what they will remember is the high, twisting foul pop that Carson Shaddy, Eric Cole and Jared Gates chased with the national championship on the line. Shaddy was the closest to snaring it but overran it by several feet.
The Hogs finished 48-21. They shared the SEC West title with Ole Miss, mostly because they were sent on the road to Florida, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, LSU and Georgia. They went 4-11 in those games, but a sparkling 14-1 in SEC home games.
There were many heroes on the season, but the true hoss in most of the big victories was Shaddy, the All-SEC second baseman from Fayetteville. He hit .395 in SEC games and was terrific in the NCAA Tournament, too.
I’ll remember the words of Van Horn when Shaddy went undrafted last summer, then returned to find several potent new threats to take his position at second base, especially freshman Casey Martin.
“Carson is looking over his shoulder,” Van Horn said in fall practice. “And, he’s put it into gear. He’s having a great fall at the plate and in the field.”
Ultimately, Martin took hold at third base. Kjerstad beat him out for SEC freshman of the year honors. Along with Dominic Fletcher, the top defensive center fielder in the SEC, Martin and Kjerstad will lead the Hogs in 2019.
The Hogs won with great hitting all season. They set the school record with 98 homers, but the bats went silent in the title series against the Beavers. They got five hits in the victory Tuesday but just seven and two in the last two games.
Oregon State pitching sent the Hogs down on strikes 38 times in the three games. The main weapon was the off-speed pitch, sliders and changeups that the Hogs often chased out of the strike zone. Abel dazzled with a changeup down in the zone and a sneaky fastball up in the zone. The Hogs never figured him out.
For the championship series, Shaddy said it was impressive OSU pitching from start to finish.
“They kept us off balance,” Shaddy said. “Like Abel did today, just enough fastballs, located their fastballs inside on hitters. And they just kept pounding us away and keeping us off balance. They did a great job.”
The only OSU pitcher the Hogs really solved was Game 1 starter Luke Heimlich. The Hogs worked some walks that led to a four-run inning.
“I think they did try to pitch in, but they also threw a lot of off-speed pitches,” Van Horn said. “I think about their No. 2 starter, he was topping out about 88. So 84, 85, 86, that was his fastball, cut fastball, changeups and sliders.
“The first lefty (Heimlich) he’d get up to maybe 93, 94, but then he’d throw you a lot of changeups and sliders, and they’re out of the zone.
“We finally figured it out, laid off and got him out of the game. I just think they threw a lot more off-speed than we’ve probably seen in our league. But we kind of knew that. It’s just the key for them was they got ahead of us and we swung at some pitches that were out of the zone when they were ahead of us.
“And, I mean, they fooled us a little bit.”
The story of the tournament was the way the Hogs lost the night before. Did they get that out of their system overnight? Did they have a good build-up to Game 3? What did Van Horn see during the day from the time he saw them at breakfast Thursday morning?
“Well, I don’t know if I would be able to tell by just looking at them what’s going on in their mind,” Van Horn said. “There was probably still a little bit of that what if and disappointment. It’s only human, human nature for that.
“But at the same time we had a good hitters meeting and guys showed up for breakfast. Gave them a window, let them sleep in a little bit.”
Nothing was wrong as the day progressed.
“Pregame was good,” Van Horn said. “Seemed like they were locked in. I just think that we just — we never got that hit. We never got anything going.
“So, yeah, who is to say. I don’t think we’ll ever know. If Abel hadn’t thrown it so well, maybe it’s a little different story. But he just didn’t give us a chance, really.”
The progress of the program under Van Horn is hard to ignore. It was his fifth time to take the Hogs to the CWS, seventh overall counting two with Nebraska. He knows the Hogs were close to the goal.
“Whenever you play for a national championship, I think, I mean, you only have one more step,” he said. “And that’s to win it.
“And I think that we will one day. I think we’ll be back soon. That’s our goal, and that’s what we’re trying to do every day. We walk in the door, the ballpark, working to get back here to play for a championship.
“I think the foundation was laid with Coach (Norm) De-Briyn and all the great players, and we continue to elevate year to year. And there’s been a step back here and there; that’s normal with draft and injuries, just the way the ball bounces sometimes, but for the most part we’ve been pretty solid for a while now.
“And we feel like we’re one of the top programs in the country year in, year out. We’re a team that if you fall into the same regional with us, you’re not happy about it. And that’s what we want it to be.”
Van Horn was asked to put the season into perspective after the game. He mentioned the goal of making it to Omaha was clearly stated.
“We talk about that in the fall,” he said. “When the season ends, you want it to end on that field right there. And, you know, when you make it here, you’re down to the final eight, and you’ve got a chance.
“And we thought we were going to have a good team. We knew the SEC was a league that was going to be older and it was going to be a battle to even win our division or league.
“But we did feel like we had a chance to play in Omaha. And we stayed healthy. We didn’t have a lot of depth. We didn’t have enough depth in our pitching staff or position players, to be honest. We played the same outfielders pretty much every game all year and same DH. Had a few guys there we mixed in and out early.
“But I guess it will probably take me a little bit of time to sit and evaluate it. Because I’m already thinking about how are we getting back here, thinking about the roster for next year and who is going to sign, things that are going on in your head, when you are still trying to win a championship.”
Van Horn liked effort and results of the season.
“I’m just proud of the way they played,” he said. “Won 48 games playing the schedule we played, one of the top two schedules, strength of schedule that was played. And we won a lot of games, a lot of close games. And we learned how to get here. We learned how to battle and get through some things.
“That’s why I kept thinking maybe the fourth or fifth inning we’re going to break this thing open and it’s all going to change. And it just never happened.”
I think it will happen, eventually. Van Horn has it rolling. He’s done it with great work on the recruiting trail, and that starts with hiring good coaches. He has a top shelf recruiting tandem now in pitching coach Wes Johnson and hitting coach Nate Thompson. There will be more trips to Omaha.
Sooner or later, Van Horn will break through. When it does, Van Horn will point to the likes of Carson Shaddy and the rest of the 2018 heroes as part of the process of winning a national championship. It may not be totally fair, but until that happens, 2018 will be remembered as the one with the biggest heartbreak, that foul ball pop that wasn’t caught.
Clay Henry can be reached at [email protected].