Arkansas Baseball Should Feel Better About Missouri State Rematch

Mark Twain’s famous line about history can cut both ways for Arkansas.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” he wrote.

For Arkansas baseball, the rhyme this weekend comes in the form of Missouri State, the Razorbacks’ first opponent at the Lawrence Regional. The two teams have already played twice this season and split the results.

If that history rhymes again, it could go in either direction.

The good version looks like Arkansas’ 12‑4 win in Fayetteville in late April. The bad version looks like Missouri State’s 15‑14 extra‑inning win in Springfield back in March.

So, is seeing the Bears again a good thing or a bad thing? Without hindsight, it’s impossible to know. But it should be a good thing.

“Big, physical team. Experienced,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said after the bracket came out. “They have a lot of power, and they can beat you in a few different ways. So it doesn’t surprise me that we’re playing them. We’re in the same area.”

One major reason Arkansas should feel better about this matchup is who will be on the mound.

In the regular‑season meetings, Steele Eaves and Tate McGuire got the starts. Both are good arms, but they aren’t Hunter Dietz or Gabe Gaeckle, and Missouri State should expect to see one of those two on Friday.

Van Horn hasn’t announced a starter yet, but with the postseason here, it’s fair to assume Arkansas will use its best arms early and sort out the rest later.

There were questions about Dietz’s status after he took a 105 mph line drive off his right foot in the SEC Tournament, but it sounds like he’ll be available without major restrictions.

“He’s doing well. We’ll still monitor that,” Van Horn said Monday. “When he gets his bullpen session in the next couple of days, we’ll see where we’re at there and try to figure out how we want to handle it.”

Another reason this matchup should tilt toward Arkansas is the location. The Bears’ win came in Springfield.

Home teams tend to play better at home, where they sleep in their own beds and have their own fans behind them. Even then, Missouri State needed a ninth‑inning comeback and extra innings to win by one.

Some will call that luck. Others will say Arkansas played poorly. Both can be true, but the odds of both happening again are slim. A month later, Arkansas nearly run‑ruled the Bears.

Baseball can get weird, and Missouri State has already shown it can push Arkansas into chaos.

But with better pitching lined up and a cleaner setting than Springfield, the Razorbacks are in a much better position to control the game from the start.