The Arizona baseball team began the Chip Hale era with an 8-6 win over Kansas State in the State Farm College Baseball Showdown at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. Here are three key stats from the victory. 

Six RBIs not on home runs:

The Wildcats usually rely on the long ball for a lot of their offense, but in this game only two of their eight runs came via the long ball. When the Wildcats had runners on the bases they were able to knock them in. Daniel Susac led the team in this game with three RBIs while going 2-5 on the day at the plate. However the Wildcats did not come through in every situation as they left some runs on the table with six runners left on base. 

Five runs given up in relief:

For their first game of the season, Arizona decided to start T.J. Nichols. He began the game strong posting a stat line of four innings pitched, allowing one run on five hits with six strikeouts. The Wildcats held an 8-1 lead in the eighth inning. Freshman pitcher Anthony Susac made his college career debut and it did not go exactly to plan. Susac posted a line of 2.1 innings pitched, allowing four runs on six hits. Relief Pitcher Trevor Long came in to face three batters, which resulted in an error, hit batter and a walk. Hale would look to Holden Christian to end the game which he was able to do to secure the victory. 

RELATED: Battling through some adversity, Arizona baseball opens the 2022 season with win over Kansas State

The Wildcat batters struck out 14 times:

During the offseason Hale had been very positive about his batters plate discipline. While this is only the first official game of the season, it was not the best start. Eight batters for the wildcats went down on strikes and six of them struck out multiple times. On the other hand they were able to draw four walks which eventually gave them RBI opportunities and they were able to turn them into runs. They will need to cut down on chasing pitches before the PAC-12 play begins because the better teams will take advantage down the line.  

Up next for Arizona is a game against Oklahoma on Saturday at 6:00 pm MST. 

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