SEC Baseball Series Preview/Prediction: Vanderbilt at Arkansas

Vanderbilt travels to Arkansas for a 3-game, Friday-Sunday SEC baseball series. 14Powers.com SEC Baseball previews this series and predicts the series winner.

By 14Powers SEC Baseball Staff

Series Schedule May 13-15

Team Statistical Comparisons

Hitting

Pitching & Fielding

Statistical Leaders

Vanderbilt Batting Leaders

Vanderbilt Pitching Leaders

Arkansas Batting Leaders

Arkansas Pitching Leaders

Massey College Baseball Ranking Composite

Vanderbilt Roster

Arkansas Roster

Vanderbilt Schedule/Results

Arkansas Schedule/Results

Vanderbilt-Arkansas Series Prediction

These teams are meeting for the fifth time in the last 10 seasons with the last four games being split at 2-2 with the home team winning both. The teams met annually between 2002-11 with Arkansas winning six of the 10 series. The Razorbacks won the first six series meetings between 1994-99. Arkansas owns two sweeps (1994 in Nashville and 2005 in Fayetteville). Vanderbilt’s only sweep in the series came in Nashville in 2015.

Vanderbilt has been an enigma as it has alternated wins and losses in each of its last 11 games. Each of the last seven times it has reached the .500 mark in the SEC standings, it has lost the following game. This marks the seventh time in the last 12 conference games the Commodores have reached the .500 mark. They are playing on the road for the third time in the last four weeks and have posted road series wins over Kentucky and Georgia. Vanderbilt is 8-6 since starting 4-6 and hasn’t won back-to-back SEC games since April 15-16 versus Florida.

Arkansas owns the longest active home SEC series winning streak with 12. The Razorbacks have not lost a home conference series since Ole Miss took two of three in week three in 2019. How much do the Hogs enjoy Baum Stadium? Over the last four seasons, they are 18-1 in SEC series. They have won four of their last five league games and are 10-2 at home in SEC play this season. This marks the third straight season Arkansas has posted at least 16 conference wins after week 8. Florida last accomplished the feat between 2016-18. A series win would give Arkansas back-to-back seasons with perfect 5-0 marks at home. The last team to do that was when LSU posted three-straight perfect home series records between 1997-99. (Source: SEC)

This series is a lot more important for Vandy than Arkansas. The Commodores have won two straight series but they have some work to do to get into a comfortable seeding (or any seeding) in the NCAA tournament. Losing this series would be bad for Vanderbilt but getting swept would be a worse disaster. Sweeps in general are very detrimental to a team’s postseason hopes. We saw Vandy get swept by Tennessee a month or so ago. It took the Commodores three or four series to work themselves back to .500 in the league. Now, they can’t afford to lose more than two from here out. Vandy’s pitching seems to be coming around. I think they’ll compete with Arkansas but probably won’t win the series. As discussed above, the hogs rarely lose a home series.

Arkansas 2 wins, Vanderbilt 1 wins