Dave Van Horn on Texas A&M's power atop lineup: 'Those guys are incredible'

The Arkansas Razorbacks are getting ready to finish up their regular season with three games on the road against the Texas A&M Aggies. Ahead of that game, Dave Van Horn praised the Aggies for their power at the top of the lineup.

Van Horn began by praising Braden Montgomery, a player who he tried to recruit to Arkansas on multiple occasions but was unable to do so.

“Those guys are incredible,” Dave Van Horn said. “Montgomery, obviously, he was a transfer from Stanford. We really tried to get him. We wanted him. Hated to see him go there. We recruited him out of high school, and thought we were in the mix until he visited Stanford.”

This season, Braden Montgomery is hitting .333 for the Aggies. He also has 24 home runs and 77 RBIs to go along with that and a .778 slugging percentage.

Montgomery isn’t alone, though, and Dave Van Horn also went on to praise Gavin Grahovac and Jace LaViolette, who are both young and blossoming stars for Texas A&M.

”But Grahovac is probably one of the best freshmen in the country offensively. I mean, he’s a threat, big time. He hits lead-off for them. So, Grahovac is an animal. You could go on and on about this lineup. LaViolette is pretty darn good himself and he’s only a sophomore. Powerful. He may be the best outfielder in the league. Who knows? Him or Montgomery. They’re probably both First-Team SEC. Hard to get one, much less two in your outfield.”

The problem with dealing with Texas A&M is that their lineup is talented and powerful going beyond the top of the lineup, though. Texas A&M has a team batting average of .308 this season, which is second best in the SEC. Meanwhile, the Aggies are third in slugging percentage (.580), second in OBP (.429), third in home runs (116), and tied for second in runs scored (475).

“So, yeah, they’re hitting .308 as a team overall,” Van Horn said. “Not sure exactly what it is in league play. Probably pretty close. Got over 100 home runs…and they’re never out of a game. So, you have to pitch them good until the last out.”

Dave Van Horn says Arkansas needs to figure out its rotation

The last two times through the weekend rotation, Arkansas has run into issues getting good starts from the pitching staff. That’s something Dave Van Horn knows needs to change soon.

“That’s obviously the major concern. The win’s awesome but now we have to really figure this thing out and we’ve got some things we’re thinking about that we’ll probably make a decision if we’re going to start some different people or how we’re going to handle it,” Van Horn said.

“Probably depends on where we are in the standings and some other things. We’ve got one guy that’s been rock solid all year, and we have two guys that have struggled down the stretch here. So, we might have to make a move. We’ll see what happens.”