GAME 44 THREAD: #14 Arkansas (33-10, 12-6 SEC) vs Ole Miss (25-16, 9-9 SEC)

[lstewart]

I've been at all our home SEC games, and I don't have a good feeling about how we are trending. For whatever reason I think we've lost that small edge that can be the difference. Call it confidence, maybe we were playing a little over our heads, whatever..... but I don't feel good about us turning it around. I just hope we can get one today.... we seem to struggle against decent lefty pitching. Maybe with the time off from the mid week games we can bounce back a little after this weekend.  Ole Miss looked a lot better than us last night. Could not hit their pitcher, and once Knight hit 100 pitches, they started hammering us.

[jry04]

I've been at all our home SEC games, and I don't have a good feeling about how we are trending. For whatever reason I think we've lost that small edge that can be the difference. Call it confidence, maybe we were playing a little over our heads, whatever..... but I don't feel good about us turning it around. I just hope we can get one today.... we seem to struggle against decent lefty pitching. Maybe with the time off from the mid week games we can bounce back a little after this weekend.  Ole Miss looked a lot better than us last night. Could not hit their pitcher, and once Knight hit 100 pitches, they started hammering us.

We have a bad hitting night once every series. Last week it was Friday, and this week it was Friday. It happens. Realistically, we did not expect to sweep this series. It gets tougher having to win 2 of a DH, but it is still doable. We had 3 balls caught at the warning track, a line drive snagged by the pitcher, and an amazing play by the SS to field it on his knees, spin and throw Gates out. If even just 2 of those go our way the game maybe turns out completely different. We weren't great at the plate, but we also had some unfortunate bounces. Over the course of the weekend, I would like to think that balances out. If we come out and rock their guy game 1, that likely carries over to game 2 and we can keep the momentum rolling. Alberius has struggled for a long time, so I am not putting much stock into how that game ended. It was a 2-1 game entering the 8th, and Knight was just left in a batter too long. He made 2 mistakes all night, and they put both pitches out of the park. It sucks, but it happens. We were in that game for 8 innings, and Ole Miss had just 4 hits up until 1 out in the 8th inning.

I may be wrong, but I have a hard time believing that Ole Miss will quiet our offense like that again this series. The big question will be what kind of start do we get from Murphy and Stephan, though. If we split today we have to sweep UT next week to have a shot at 40 wins and still be in the hosting discussion. If we go 0-2 today we can kiss hosting goodbye.