Hogs Bash Eight Homers, Blast UAPB
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The nation’s leader in home runs added to its total in a big way Wednesday night at Baum-Walker Stadium.
The unanimously top-ranked Razorbacks smashed eight homers in a 26-1 blowout win against UA Pine Bluff, finishing one shy of tying the single-game school record of nine (vs. Grambling State, June, 4, 2010). The output brings the Hogs’ season total to 63, which is nine more than any other team in college baseball this season.
Wednesday night’s contest was called after the top of the seventh inning with the run rule in effect. Arkansas improves to 28-5 on the year with the win and has won all five games against in-state opponents this season.
Matt Goodheart, Brady Slavens, Cullen Smith and Charlie Welch each swatted two home runs in the 26-run onslaught, contributing to the Hogs’ 17 hits on the afternoon. Slavens’ three-run shot in the third tied him with Christian Franklin for the team lead in home runs (9).
Arkansas scored multiple runs in the first, second and third innings, opening a 15-1 lead by the fourth. The Hogs nearly doubled that total in the bottom half of the fifth with 11 more runs, three shy of the single-inning program record of 14 (first inning vs. Saint Louis, April, 7, 2010).
Goodheart led the squad with four base knocks, his second four-hit effort of the season. His first home of the evening traveled 450 feet to right, leaving the bat at 110 miles per hour with a 50-degree launch angle and clearing the newly constructed J.B. and Johnelle Hunt Family Baseball Development Center.
He and Slavens each drove in five runs in the 26-1 win. Welch, meanwhile, collected a career-best four RBI.
Kole Ramage started on the mound and earned the win, striking out four in two scoreless innings. Seven Hog relievers pitched in the winning effort, combining for five innings of two-hit, one-run ball with seven strikeouts.
Offensively, the Razorbacks had not scored 26 runs in a ballgame since doing so against Iowa on Feb. 24, 1997, in Arlington, Texas. Arkansas hit six or more home runs in a game for the first time since a 32-4 win against Bucknell on Feb. 17, 2018, when Jared Gates, Luke Bonfield, Carson Shaddy, Dominic Fletcher, Grant Koch and Casey Martin each hit one.
Arkansas now looks forward to this weekend’s SEC home series against Texas A&M. The Aggies come to Fayetteville for a three-game series, which gets started at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 16, on SEC Network+.
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