Dave Van Horn shares pitching plan for South Carolina series

This weekend, the Arkansas Razorbacks are going to host the South Carolina Gamecocks in a premier series that could help determine who wins the SEC regular season championship. Ahead of that series, Razorbacks coach Dave Van Horn broke down the plan for the pitching rotation.

As Van Horn explained, the team is focused on winning Friday and will figure out the rest of the series after that.

“We’ll do what we’ve been doing,” Dave Van Horn said. “[Hagen] Smith will start this week, again, and then we’ll TBA it and because we could use those guys out of the pen. We’re going to do what we’ve got to do to win Friday.”

Hagen Smith has been an excellent pitcher for Arkansas over the past two seasons. In 2022, he was on the Freshman All-SEC Team. He’s been even better this season, with a 2.56 ERA in 52.2 innings pitched this season.

Because Van Horn is going to decide on a starter following Friday’s game, he wasn’t able to determine who is going to pitch on Sunday yet either. That will come down to how he had to use his pitchers in the previous two games and who is healthy for it.

“We’ll TBA it on Sunday as well. Obviously, after the game [Friday] I’ll be able to give you a Saturday starter and then, obviously, you pretty much know who’s going to throw Sunday if he’s feeling good.”

Arkansas is currently the third-ranked team in D1 Baseball’s top-25. South Carolina, meanwhile, is sixth. The Gamecocks are 14-9 in SEC play, sitting behind Vanderbilt and Florida in the East. Arkansas is first in the West with a 17-7 record, meaning this series could turn the top end of the conference on its head.

Dave Van Horn gave an injury update

Ahead of the key series against South Carolina, Dave Van Horn gave an injury update for multiple Arkansas players.

“[Tavian] Josenberger’s looking good. Worked out with us yesterday, he’ll be out there again today. So he’ll be on roster again. [Jared] Wegner, obviously, got his pins out on Monday. Thumb’s still pretty sore. He’ll be on the roster. Still not sure about playing yet. Not swinging the bat with the team at all yet. Probably highly unlikely this weekend,” Van Horn said.

“[Peyton] Stovall, shoulder’s not doing great, so probably not going to, as of now, put him on the roster. We’ll see how that goes.”