VS 
VS I got one of the best early birthday gifts EVER! Katie gave me season tickets to see the Diamond Hogs!! I guess she read my Peanuts and Cracker Jacks post!
Last night was the season opener against Wright State. This was slated as an “easy opener” for the Hogs and a tough match for Wright State, however, WS was picked to win their conference (The Horizon League). Last year, WS traveled to Ole Miss for game 1 and took 2 games to win the series! They are a dangerous team.
I picked Katie up from school and we went pretty almost straight to the game. I had listened to some on the radio before we left and WSU had scored one in the first inning with one of our Rookie pitchers, right hander, James Mahler. He is going to be great, but last night was a rough night for him.
It was going to be a cold night. We guessed about 35º but it turrned out to stay under 29º the entire night! There was some “snowy misty” every now and then. The lights were on since the game started and it was a dark, cloudy, opening day with just 681 in attendance.
We arrived at the top of the second inning only to find that WSU had scored 4 in the first off of 5 hits and Arkansas only had 1 hit. Dallas Keuchel came into the game and walked the first man he faced but then he began sitting them down with his off speed nastyness. That guy has some great ball movement! There were players backing off of the plate only to have the ball curve in for the strike. At one point, he faced 12 straight with no hits! That gave room for our offense to start going.
We were behind 4 – 0 and the hogs began to take some bases. Our junior college transferee Chase Leavitt hammered two-run, triple to right center with two outs remaining. We added four more runs in the 6th inning when our Sr. first baseman, Aaron Murphee hit a two-RBI, single through the left side. Then the hogs went on a tear! The veterans showed up, Forsythe, Tschepikow, Murphree, & Wilkins all scored big in a 9 hit crush! Wilkins hit a Home Run into the pond over right field and scored 3 RBI’s and two runs on the night. Logan Forsythe walked twice and stole a base.
Near the end of the game, it seemed that the Wright State pitchers were having a hard time NOT hitting our players. The crowed was jumping all over him & the umps for doing nothing about it.
Wells (a Bryant High School Alum) came in to finish the game with 2.1 innings of work allowing just 2 hits and striking out four. Keuchel got the win without allowing a single hit in almost 7 innings!
Thanks for an incredible birthday gift, honey! I look forward to many more hours of baseball, right beside you!
GO HOGS!
Links
- Download the Official Scorecard [pdf]
- HogWired.com Game Recap
