IF YOU SMELL WHAT (LITTLE) ROCK IS COOKING
The thing about postseason play is that no matter how lowly you’re seeded, once you’re in the field you have just as equal a chance of winning the whole thing as anybody else.
Fresno State went all the way to the 2008 national championship as a No. 4 seed; just three years ago Ole Miss went from “last team in” to “last team standing” when the Rebs won it all in 2022; even big, bad LSU, the self-proclaimed “powerhouse” of college baseball has twice gotten got at home by small schools (see Brook, Stony and Carolina, Coastal).
Little Rock, whom will play LSU in the 1 vs. 4 game Friday afternoon to open the Baton Rouge Regional (2:00 P.M., SEC Network), had only one path to making the NCAA Tournament: win the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, and win they did.
The Trojans went a perfect 5-0 in Mountain Dew Park*** including winning two elimination games on day one of the tournament. Little Rock beat the No. 1 seed Eastern Illinois twice, both by one run. Little Rock won the first game 9-8 in 10 innings, and then two days later won again in the OVC Championship Game 2-1.
As a random aside: Mountain Dew Park? God bless America
We can give Little Rock all the credit in the world for winning their conference tournament, while also being candid: this Trojan team is maybe the worst team in the entire field, and LSU shouldn’t have to use Kade Anderson or Anthony Eyanson to get into the winner’s bracket game.
Little Rock Trojans
2025 Record: 24-32 (8-16)
RPI Ranking: 243
SOS Ranking: 243
Quadrant Results: Q1 (1-2), Q2 (0-0), Q3 (6-15), Q4 (17-15)
Staff ERA: 6.33
Team BA: .271
Team Fielding: .969
Little Rock is no stranger to SEC opponents, in fact its biggest win of the season—outside of winning the OVC Tournament of course— came at Oxford. Little Rock beat Ole Miss 7-3 on a Tuesday night in Swayze Field, but the momentum wouldn’t carry over to the following week as Arkansas whupped up on the Trojans 14-0 over a two-game series. The Hogs run-ruled Little Rock 10-0 on a Tuesday night, then came back and shut them out 4-0 the following night.
But for winning five games in four days at the OVC Tournament, nothing positive jumps out schedule wise about this Trojan team. Little Rock got swept by a bad Nicholls team the second weekend of the year and got swept at home against Murray State. Once conference play got started, the Trojans got swept three different times, and its two series wins came against the only two teams to finish behind them in the conference standings: Western Illinois and Morehead State.
Little Rock will most likely give the ball to Jack Cline, who is 8-5 in 16 appearances, 15 starts, with a 4.83 ERA. Cline’s best outing of the season came in the OVC Championship game, when he went the distance, allowing six hits and just one run. If it’s not Cline, expect Jackson Wells to take the mound. Wells also started 15 games though the numbers aren’t nearly as impressive: a 3-6 record with a 5.24 ERA. Wells pitched three fewer innings than Cline but allowed four more hits, and opponents batted 21 points higher against him (.275 vs. .254).
I’ve never seen either pitch and the only context I have is the cumulative stats, but I’m assuming Wells throws harder than Cline, but also has more control problems. Wells has about 30 more strikeouts than Cline (90 to 62), but in three fewer innings has issued the same number of walks and hit batters, while also throwing six wild pitches to Cline’s one.
From an innings perspective, Little Rock’s top-five pitchers are all righties so expect to see Jake Brown start in right field, and while Ethan Frey’s been pretty hot lately, Jay Johnson loves to play matchups so maybe Josh Pearson gets the start at DH for another left-handed bat.
Little Rock’s bullpen probably won’t strike fear into many teams. Seven Trojan pitchers have logged at least 20 innings, and the lowest individual ERA is Malcolm Brown’s 5.50. Now to be fair, LSU’s offense is coming off a two-hit effort against Ole Miss’s freshman midweek arm but if there was ever a remedy for the offensive slump the Tigers have been in, it’s playing at home against this Little Rock pitching staff.
Speaking of offense, there’s not a lot of power in this Little Rock lineup. As a team, Little Rock has 46 home runs and Ty Rhoades leads the squad with eight. The Trojans have a slugging percentage of .400, and for context LSU’s slugging a combined .515.
The Trojans only have three batters hitting over .300, and Cooper Chaplain’s team-leading .423 OBP would rank seventh among LSU’s top-10.
I want to be respectful, but on paper at least this is a pretty bad Little Rock team that LSU has no trouble with. In fact it’s very likely Little Rock goes 0-2 this weekend. But the Trojans defied the odds once already, who’s to say they can’t do it again Friday afternoon? We’ll see what The Rock is cooking at 2:00 P.M. on Friday.