Arkansas beats No. 5 Georgia and Dietz got chills leaving Baum-Walker

Dave Van Horn has coached enough baseball to know the difference between a team that thinks it can win and a team that expects to.

Right now, he believes his Arkansas squad falls into the second category.

“They’re pretty confident,” Van Horn said after the Razorbacks beat fifth-ranked Georgia 6-3 Thursday night at Baum-Walker Stadium. “They feel like they’re going to win. You’re playing a team like Georgia that’s very, very physical … and leading the SEC outright. Our attitude was good. It was calm before the game, but serious.”

He didn’t stop there.

“I’d say the team is probably as confident as they’ve been all year,” he said.

It’s hard to argue with him. Arkansas won its sixth straight game in front of 10,320 fans at Baum-Walker, improved to 6-1 against top-10 SEC opponents this season and did it by controlling the game from the first pitch to the last out.

The Hogs are now 26-13 overall and 9-7 in SEC play. Georgia dropped to 30-9 and 11-5 in conference action. Game 2 is set for Friday at 6 p.m. in Fayetteville.

Dietz delivers in biggest spot

If Van Horn is the architect of this team’s confidence, left-hander Hunter Dietz has been one of its most reliable builders lately.

Thursday night was no different.

Dietz started the series opener — his first career home series-opening start — and worked 5 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on five hits with one walk and six strikeouts. He threw 61 of 85 pitches for strikes.

After back-to-back starts at Auburn and Alabama where he exceeded 100 pitches each time, Van Horn planned from the start to keep Dietz’s workload shorter Thursday.

“We just felt like we needed to get him out,” Van Horn said.

Dietz understood the assignment. He threw with the lead all night after Arkansas jumped on Georgia starter Joey Volchko for three runs in the first inning, and he said that changes everything about how a pitcher approaches his work.

“Pitching with the lead is so much different than pitching in a close game,” Dietz said. “Not a huge difference, but it just allows me and other pitchers to be more comfortable.”

The only damage against him came on solo home runs. Ryan Wynn connected in the third inning and Daniel Jackson went deep in the sixth.

Van Horn wasn’t losing sleep over that. “Usually, the solo homer is not going to beat you too much,” he said.

Over his last 18 1/3 innings, Dietz has allowed just five earned runs and struck out 26 batters. When he walked off the mound with a 5-2 lead in the top of the sixth, Baum-Walker gave him a standing ovation.

“I got chills walking back in the dugout,” Dietz said.

Rutenbar makes his mark

If Dietz’s exit was the emotional peak of the night for the crowd, freshman Carter Rutenbar gave them the loudest moment.

With Arkansas leading 5-2 in the seventh inning, Rutenbar jumped on a hung changeup and sent it 404 feet off the top of the video scoreboard in right-center field. It was the second home run of his career and his first in SEC play.

“I was just trying to stay loose, let the hands work, and it felt great, especially doing it in front of our home fans,” Rutenbar said. “It was awesome.”

It wasn’t Rutenbar’s only contribution Thursday. He’d drawn a walk in the first inning — one of two leadoff walks Volchko issued on just 10 pitches — and eventually scored to help Arkansas build its 3-0 first-inning lead.

“He’s a really good pitcher,” Rutenbar said of Volchko. “He has good stuff, so we knew he was going to be in the zone a little bit. It was good that we jumped on him quickly.”

Offense manufactures when it has to

One of the qualities Van Horn consistently gets out of his lineups is the ability to score without needing a three-run homer. Thursday’s game had another example of that.

In the fourth inning with Arkansas leading 3-1, Damian Ruiz led off with a single and Nolan Souza drew a walk. The two immediately pulled off a double steal to put runners in scoring position with nobody out.

A sacrifice fly from Niu scored Ruiz, and after Kuhio Aloy’s flyout couldn’t bring home Souza, Reese Robinett delivered a two-out infield single to make it 5-1.

“We just felt like we had to try to manufacture and just do things,” Van Horn said.

Ruiz had also been a factor in that big first inning, ripping an RBI double and later scoring on Volchko’s second wild pitch of the frame.

It was the kind of two-way contribution from the lineup that Van Horn has leaned on during this six-game winning streak.

Georgia’s Volchko struck out seven of eight batters between the first and third innings and showed he’s capable of dominating stretches, but the damage was already done.

He finished having allowed five runs — four earned — on five hits and four walks with eight strikeouts over 104 pitches.

Bullpen closes it out

Van Horn turned to right-hander Gabe Gaeckle after Dietz exited.

Gaeckle was sharp early, retiring every batter he faced in his first 1 2/3 innings before allowing one run on two hits in the eighth. He finished with two strikeouts and no walks over two innings on just 24 pitches that was efficient enough Van Horn expects him to be available again during the series.

“His breaking ball was pretty good,” Van Horn said. “It almost felt like they spotted something, saw something — they might have been pitches that were left in the middle too much. … But I liked his stuff tonight.”

Closer Ethan McElvain had the toughest assignment of the night. He came in during the eighth with a 6-2 lead, but Tre Phelps scored on a wild pitch to cut it to 6-3 and McElvain eventually loaded the bases facing pinch hitter Cole Koniarsky.

His first pitch sailed to the backstop. His 3-1 fastball was a called strike. Then Koniarsky grounded out to third on the next pitch to end the inning.

Van Horn liked what he saw from his closer even when it wasn’t his sharpest outing.

“He didn’t give in, and he didn’t panic,” the coach said. “He just kept throwing strikes or a big pitch when he needed a strike.”

McElvain returned for the ninth and worked around a one-out walk to Kolby Branch. Phelps flied out to right to strand Branch at third base, sealing McElvain’s third save of the season. He walked two and struck out two in 1 2/3 innings.

“I liked his approach there,” Van Horn said. “It wasn’t his best stuff tonight. That’s the way it works with pitchers. … If we were fortunate enough to get him back, say in Game 3, you never know, he might be better. We’ll see how he feels.”

Six straight wins. A roster that’s manufacturing runs, getting strong starting pitching and leaning on a bullpen that competes when it matters.

Van Horn knows what he’s got right now  and so does everyone watching from Baum-Walker.