Dave Van Horn breaks down how approaches are different for SEC Baseball Tournament

When Arkansas and LSU met in the SEC Tournament on Thursday night, they each threw their ace, making it one of the most intriguing pitching matchups of the event. But neither pitcher went deep.

LSU’s Paul Skenes and Arkansas’ Hagen Smith each went just 3.2 innings in the game, which ultimately ended in a 5-4 Razorbacks win.

Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn explained after the game that circumstances dictated Smith not pitch much longer, as he didn’t want to burn arms just to burn them during the SEC Tournament.

“I think both offenses dictated a little bit whether you were going to go four or five, but I mean, I talked with one of their coaches today in passing, and I got the impression that they were thinking like we were, that we weren’t going to throw Hagen more than 70 pitches, whether it took three innings, five innings, or whatever,” Van Horn said.

Smith finished his outing allowing five hits and two runs. He was reasonably sharp, striking out nine while walking just one.

Had it not been a situation where Van Horn wanted to prevent overuse, he could have gone longer in the SEC Tournament matchup.

“I see on here it says 76 (pitches),” Van Horn said. “We thought he threw 70 on the nose. And you could see he wanted to stay in. He wasn’t done. He deserved to get that last out if he could. Or the last two outs maybe.

“Anyway, yeah, how do we — we don’t want to tax anybody. We want to be ready to play next weekend.”

Like Arkansas, LSU kept Skenes on a pretty tight pitch count. Skenes gave up five runs on four hits, striking out three and walking two in his 3.2 innings of work.

Both Arkansas and LSU were locks for the postseason even before the conclusion of the SEC Tournament, with both projected as national seeds by D1Baseball. The publication has Arkansas pegged as the No. 3 overall seed and LSU as the No. 4 overall seed.

You don’t get there without coaches that know how to manage their roster, particularly their pitching.

“Ten weeks in a row in this league and you come to this tournament, you’ve got to be careful,” Van Horn said. “So I think both coaches were — both teams were being cautious with their guys, and that was the plan. They weren’t going to throw Paul Skenes 105 pitches, and we weren’t going to throw Hagen 100. I think it’s just the way you take care of guys, get ready for Regionals.”

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