2026 Razorback Baseball

[Hognrock]

LSU is making a push for the Stanford pitcher.  They got hammered in the draft and have some money to burn.

LSU and Tenn both got hammered. Some might have been expected. We made out pretty good I think.

[Pig Benis]

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2025-mlb-draft-college-baseball-winners-losers/

[DirkPiggler]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6498825/2025/07/17/gage-wood-phillies-draft-arkansas-baseball/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983&userId=15514385&source=dailyemail

[BleedinRed]

It's a pay to read article   What is the gist?

[DirkPiggler]

It's a pay to read article   What is the gist?

Stop being poor.

You should be able to open these with an Incognito tab on Chrome without logging in.


A trip to the College World Series was on the line, and Arkansas pitcher Gage Wood did not have his best stuff.

Three straight hits loaded the bases in the third against Tennessee in the Super Regional on June 8. A runner scored.

Wood wasn't laboring, pitching coach Matt Hobbs said, but batters were getting to him. So he pulled Wood in the fourth, and the bullpen chipped in during an 11-4 win that sent the Razorbacks to the College World Series.

Nobody was more excited at the end of the game than Wood, Hobbs said, though he easily could have been upset. It was Wood's draft year. He'd thrown around 40 pitches.

The next day, when Hobbs borderline apologized to Wood for removing him from the game, Wood told him:

"Who cares? We're going to Omaha."

By any means, any method, Wood wanted to get his home state Razorbacks to Omaha. It was there that Wood became an Arkansas folk hero, throwing just the third no-hitter in College World Series history against Murray State on June 16. There was no removing Wood that day; Hobbs tried after eight innings and 106 pitches, and Wood refused.

The Batesville, Ark., native finished the game and his college career on his terms, in 119 pitches and with 19 strikeouts. He will be remembered for delivering one of the College World Series' most dominant performances ever, elevating his state in the process.

"An Arkansas kid standing on the mound in Omaha in a must-win game for the University of Arkansas — I mean, it doesn't get much bigger than that, right?" director of pitching development Zach Barr said. "We don't win the game, we're going home. The season's over. For him to go out there and do what he did in an environment like that on that day was pretty unbelievable."


Gage Wood reacts after the end of the eighth inning during his no-hitter against Murray State. (Steven Branscombe / Imagn Images)
A new chapter began Sunday, when Wood was drafted 26th by the Phillies. In Wood, Philadelphia landed a righty with an elite fastball with life and movement that produced the top whiff rate in Division I baseball. His curveball has strong vertical break and ranges from 83 to 86 mph. The club envisions developing Wood as a starter, also liking his slider and split-changeup.

But, before first-round projections, the no-hitter and a slot value of more than $3.4 million, Wood was a wide-eyed freshman arriving at the school he'd rooted for since he was a child.

He left Batesville High School, where enrollment is less than 1,000 students, as one of the state's top prep baseball players. He arrived at Arkansas, which has an undergraduate student population of nearly 29,000, and joined a team with some of the nation's top college players competing against other top talents.

"I thought he was a cartoon character, just very wide-eyed and bushy-tailed," Barr said of first meeting Wood in 2022.

Why?

"There's always a little bit of a 'Holy s —' moment for the young guys that come in," Barr said. "Gage is probably one of, if not the best, pitchers from our state. He's got some accolades behind him, but not as highly touted as some of the other guys we had. ... You kind of have that moment of realization, 'Oh, it's not my pond anymore. Now it's our pond, and I've got to try to be a big fish in it.'"

Wood closed some games in the middle of the season and threw some big innings in 2023. But, Hobbs said, he fizzled out like freshmen tend to do when frequently put in high-leverage situations. He finished the year with 23 appearances, recording five saves en route to a 4.80 ERA.

He looked different when he got to campus as a sophomore, coaches said. He was stronger. He'd shed baby fat. On the mound, his delivery was stronger, he used the strike zone more and the breaking ball was sharper.

"We always knew he was serious," coach Dave Van Horn said, "but we knew how serious he was now."

What transformed his game: paying attention to the little things, like his diet, sleep and recovery.

Hobbs recalled talking about food with Wood, who brought up that he'd run out of his meal prep — a foreign concept to some college athletes, who often eat at state-of-the-art cafeterias.

"I was like, 'Wait a second: you're preparing meals for the week?'" Hobbs said. "It's something you preach to your players, but it's rare that it actually happens, right?"

Wood primarily pitched in middle relief in 2024, logging a 4.46 ERA in 40 1/3 innings. What made Wood strong in relief, Van Horn said, was throwing a lot of strikes, repeating pitches well and good velocity. Combining that with a three-to-four-pitch repertoire that he could command made him a starter as a junior in 2025, Van Horn said.

Wood, however, made just two starts before tweaking his shoulder in mid-February. There were a few weeks, Van Horn said, where they didn't know if he'd return.

"You just never know how that's going to go," he said.

The MRI and other imaging came back fine. But it was a risk to come back, Hobbs said, especially in Wood's draft year. Still: "I don't know that ever really entered his mind," Hobbs said. The shoulder impingement — an injury that occurs when the shoulder blade pinches the rotator cuff — likely contributed to Wood going late in the first round, though Phillies assistant general manager Brian Barber said it did not concern the Phillies.


Gage Wood, pictured in 2024, overcame a shoulder injury in his junior season. He finished with a 3.82 ERA over 10 starts and 69 strikeouts in 37 2/3 innings. (Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)
Wood listened to the doctors, trusted his coaches' plan and kept asking: "How fast can you get me back on the mound? When can I pitch again?"

Barr felt encouraged a few weeks into Wood's throwing progression, when he began throwing full speed and didn't feel sore or move slowly afterward. Van Horn said he knew four to five weeks after the injury that they'd get Wood back; it was just a matter of how they used him.

What allowed Wood to return to the mound less than two months after the injury? His mindset toward rehab, Hobbs said.

"He was going to attack it, not just worry about what might happen," Hobbs said. "He also had the work ethic and was good at the monotonous stuff. He's good at the boring things. He's good at the pre-throws, the post-throw. He's good at making sure he's taking care of himself."

He returned April 18, throwing 25 pitches in a third of an inning. Hobbs saw some of Wood's prior excellence in his next outing against Florida, when he struck out five of the 10 batters he faced in three innings. The fastball reached 97-98 mph, Hobbs said, with strong command at the top of the zone. A couple of outings later, he struck out nine in four innings against Texas. He finished his junior season with 69 strikeouts and seven walks in 37 2/3 innings.

"He's got stuff that he'd show up on days where you're like, 'If he's pretty good today, if he commands it pretty well, they're going to have a really hard time getting more than a couple hits,'" Hobbs said.

Wood's college pitching career culminated on the mountain top, jumping up and down on the mound and using his hand to underline the Arkansas Razorbacks name on his jersey before his teammates mobbed him. Arkansas ultimately fell to Louisiana State in the semifinals on June 18. But, just moments removed from the joyous jumping with teammates on Charles Schwab Field, Wood told reporters post-game that he was on "cloud nine."



Connor Cunningham, Murray State's starting shortstop, could not have felt more differently after losing the elimination game. Wood had struck out Cunningham, his hometown catch partner, for the second-to-last out. After celebrating with his teammates and before his ESPN interview, Wood found his friend.

"I mean, that was the third no-hitter in the College World Series, first since 1960," Cunningham said. "Our season's over and what he does is come over to the dugout and hug me. It shows how good of a human being he is."

On the mound, Wood is "10 feet tall and bulletproof, and when you step in that box, he's pretty confident that he's going to get you out," Barr said. The same fierceness extends to helping his friends and teammates.

For more than two years, Cunningham has worked with Wood during the winter. They did not overlap at Batesville, as Cunningham transferred to the school the year Wood left for Arkansas. But Wood needed a catch partner and Cunningham a throwing partner. They play catch in the football team's indoor facility, then move to the weight room to lift. Wood workshops different pitches on Cunningham. And it's not a problem that Cunningham doesn't have a catcher's mitt, though, "I won't lie, it kind of hurts the hand a little bit," he said.

Cunningham, a high school junior when they started working together, had lots of questions for Wood. On mental cues, what to expect in college, what to do in the weight room, what Arkansas was like.

"Some guys like to work alone," Cunningham said. "But him inviting me to work with him, asking him questions to help improve my game (was valuable)."

Wood also offered advice to Arkansas teammates when not on the mound, Barr said, calling him their "biggest fan on the whole team."

"I mean, he's on the rail," Barr said. "He's trying to help you between innings, tell you what he saw, maybe what he was doing. For a lot of our guys, that's pretty irrelevant because they don't throw 100 with an absolute hammer curveball. But I think his confidence bleeds into everybody else."

Wood, upon signing with the Phillies, will report to the team's Clearwater, Fla., facility. His standout run in his home state has ended. He has an opportunity to begin a new one as he climbs the Phillies' system.

But memories of delivering Arkansas' greatest pitching performance will never be too far away.

"It's something he'll be able to carry with him his whole life," Van Horn said. "I don't think he'll ever have a problem getting a job in this state. I don't think he'll ever have a problem going out to dinner. He'll get a lot of dinners bought for him in this state because that's the way people do it."

[BleedinRed]

Stop being poor.

It what I excel at though. 

Thanks for the cut and paste. 

[BleedinRed]

https://x.com/parker_coil/status/1949929727734448197

[BleedinRed]

Was hoping we could get Coil back.

Ask and ye shall receive.

[HTL]

Lfg

[jdcatty]

https://x.com/parker_coil/status/1949929727734448197

I'm guessing DVH is happy about that.

[BleedinRed]

https://x.com/d1baseball/status/1955675932301091113

I've alway slike D1Baseball...

[DrMongoose]

The ad said at hi sports club today they would be putting another video board  at bws over the hog pen since the folks on macke landing and  hunt center  etc can't see the current one.

But we still can't get cup holders. wtf?

[HTL]

Does Yuracheeks ever listen to the fans? No one wants this.

[BleedinRed]

Does Yuracheeks ever listen to the fans? No one wants this.

No one wants another score board?  Why?

[Silence Of The Hams]

No one wants another score board?  Why?

I think it's great 🤷�♂️

[BleedinRed]

https://x.com/RazorbackBSB/status/1965495650944241812

https://arkansasrazorbacks.com/12-ncaa-tournament-teams-18-game-homestand-highlight-razorbacks-2026-schedule/

[Pig Benis]

https://x.com/RazorbackBSB/status/1965495650944241812

https://arkansasrazorbacks.com/12-ncaa-tournament-teams-18-game-homestand-highlight-razorbacks-2026-schedule/

Interesting. No return series at either UT. I was selfishly hoping they would make the Horns a permanent opponent. They certainly should.

[vegashog]

we got ole miss, and wait for it, missouri.

texass got aggie and ou.

[Hognrock]

we got ole miss, and wait for it, missouri.

texass got aggie and ou.

At least Mizzou pretty much guarantees 3 SEC wins/year.

[DrMongoose]

no LSU, Moo State, Teasip, Tenneesee, or Vandy.  is that right?

still no cup holders either.