Why Texas got swept by Arkansas

The Horns try to bounce back on Tuesday with a midweek game against the Cardinals.

Playing in a conference with thin margins hardly defined the inevitable bad weekend in SEC play for the Texas Longhorns as the Arkansas Razorbacks bludgeoned head coach Jim Schlossnagle’s program in a weekend sweep in Fayetteville as the home team outscored the visitors 28-9.

“There was no margin — we played horrible. There was no one swing by us that changes things when you give up as many free bases as we did as a pitching staff and defense,” Schlossnagle said in his weekly appearance on the Around the Horns podcast.

The “Dominate the Zone” approach from pitching coach Max Weiner went lacking for the Longhorns in walking 22 batters and hitting nine more as the Razorbacks also hit eight home runs at Baum-Walker Field, a small stadium that played even smaller with the wind blowing out, as evidenced by exit velocities in the low 90s that produced home runs.

“The pitching staff was warned about that before the weekend began,” Schlossnagle said.

It didn’t make a difference, especially on Saturday when the Razorbacks hit five home runs that produced 12 of the 13 runs scored by Arkansas.

In the fourth inning, two walks by Texas pitchers led to two-run home runs.

In the fifth inning, two walks led to a three-run home run hit over the scoreboard at Baum-Walker on a bad 0-0 breaking ball from junior right-hander Thomas Burns, who walked five in 1.1 innings.

In the seventh, another three-run home run came after two walks.

“You can give up five homers, you just can’t walk 10 or hit all these guys,” Schlossnagle said.

In the Thursday matchup, a 9-0 win by the Hogs, Horns junior right-hander Ruger Riojas was pitching for the third time in 13 days and had the worst outing of his college career, allowing nine runs on seven hits in 3.2 innings.

The three runs allowed by Riojas in the third inning were indicative of how things went for Texas the entire weekend — the UTSA transfer hit the leadoff batter and then issued a one-out walk before allowing a 411-foot, three-run home run on a poor 3-2 breaking ball from Riojas that was in the zone, but hardly dominant in it.

Pitching with a tired arm, Riojas was unable to work his fastball at his typical mid-90s velocity, forcing him to consistently pitch backwards.

Because junior right-hander Jared Spencer is out for the season with a shoulder injury and Riojas is extended, the lack of power arms on a Texas pitching staff was on display in Fayetteville.

The Longhorns lacked them last season and with this staff quickly assembled when Schlossnagle and Weiner arrived long after the NCAA transfer portal had opened, the reality — obscured in the historic start to conference play — is that the group doesn’t have a stable of frontline SEC power arms.

On Friday, Texas sent redshirt junior right-hander Luke Harrison to the mound, whose fastball has improved into the low 90s as he’s gained strength since the Tommy John surgery that cost him the 2023 season.

To be effective, Harrison has to use his cutter to get in on the hands of right-handed batters, leading to two hit batters as Harrison gave up four runs on six hits with two walks in 4.0 innings in the 6-1 loss on Friday.

Texas ultimately walked nine batters and hit five more in that game, during which Arkansas managed to win easily despite managing only two extra-base hits.

On Saturday, junior right-hander Max Grubbs made his first start of the season and wasn’t able to work effectively in the strike zone with his low-90s sinker, walking three and allowing four runs on three hits, two of which were two-run home runs.

Even breakout star Dylan Volantis, the freshman left-hander, has to pitch backwards, rarely using his low-90s fastball that should improve as he gains strength. When Arkansas hitters showed enough patience to draw two of the eight walks Volantis has issued on the season in his 2.1-inning appearance in Sunday’s back-and-forth game, giving in and throwing an inside 89-mph fastball on a 1-0 count to a left-handed batter led to the third home run the California product has given up this season.

“It’s no secret how we pitch and it’s different than some schools. I think Max has done a phenomenal job taking the people that we have on the pitching staff and giving them an opportunity to be successful in this league,” Schlossnagle said.

As the power arms for Arkansas produced career highs in strikeouts for the starting pitchers on Thursday and Friday, the blazing fastballs by those pitchers stood in stark contrast to the offerings from Texas. On Friday, for instance, Razorbacks starter Gage Woods was running his fastball into the high 90s.

“If you have Gage Woods’ fastball, then you can pitch with your fastball. If you don’t have Gage Woods’ fastball, you’re going to get hammered in this conference,” Schlossnagle said.

The Texas head coach saw it happen on Sunday when LSU gave up a go-ahead, three-run home run to Caden Sorrell in the eighth inning of a 6-4 loss that helped the Longhorns preserve their No. 1 ranking.

“I watched a little bit of the A&M game yesterday and if you’re going to try and beat the best hitters with fastballs, you better have an elite fastball, or a guy like Caden Sorrell is going to hit it over the scoreboard like he did, so you better be able to pitch in unique ways,” Schlossnagle said.

At 92 mph, the 2-1 fastball to Sorrell wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t elite and it was out over the plate, allowing Sorrell to get extension and send it out of Blue Bell Park to the opposite field.

So the elite ERA on the Longhorns pitching staff entering the weekend was all the more remarkable because the approach looks so different for Texas than it does for other SEC teams that have pitchers who can use their fastball to get ahead and then take advantage of their elite breaking balls out of the zone to strike out hitters.

Knowing that right-hander Zach Root could succeed with exactly that approach on Thursday, Schlossnagle wanted his hitters to be more aggressive early in the count.

“The level of the competitiveness of the at bats in the first game was beyond horrific,” Schlossnagle said.

Root struck out 11 batters in his eight-inning scoreless outing, allowing only two hits, both singles.

“That game was as much about Zach Root as it was anything, I mean, he was phenomenal. He’s already good and he had a great night,” Schlossnagle said.

But Schlossnagle still wasn’t happy about how his team executed their plan in the batter’s box.

“Our plan was to swing earlier in the count. Some guys did, some guys didn’t. The game’s not played with a joystick — I can’t joy stick it over there and press buttons. It’s not MLB the Show where you’re holding a game controller,” Schlossnagle said.

Even as the approach improved on Saturday, it didn’t make a difference as the Longhorns struck out 15 times and scored one run on a solo home run by junior catcher Rylan Galvan as Wood and right-hander Gabe Gaeckle were dominant in their combined seven innings of work.

“The conversation was more about, yeah, [Wood’s] a great pitcher. You’ve got to freaking battle him and and make some adjustments, whether it be swinging early in the count or whether it be fighting more with two strikes,” Schlossnagle said.

“Actually, even though we struck out a lot, I felt like the quality at bats against Wood — and definitely Gaeckle, who’s a great pitcher, too — were way better, but we never got a chance to catch up. We just didn’t. We gave up too many free bases and too many extra-base hits.”

The all-around struggles for the Longhorns produced a bad weekend in Fayetteville.

“They just outplayed us in every sense of the word and we got to hear about it for three days from from Arkansas fans, which is part of the being in the conference,” Schlossnagle said.

On Tuesday, Texas looks to bounce back against Lamar at UFCU Disch-Falk Field. At 37-14 overall and No. 58 in the RPI, the Cardinals are good enough to deal the Longhorns their third midweek loss of the season. First pitch is at 6:30 p.m. Central on SEC Network+ with sophomore left-hander Kade Bing (3-0, 2.91 ERA) taking the mound for Texas.