Arkansas will be without a member of its starting rotation against Ole Miss

Arkansas will be without a member of its pitching rotation when the Razorbacks visit No. 4 Ole Miss starting Thursday.

Isaiah Campbell, a redshirt sophomore right-hander, is experiencing elbow inflammation and won’t make the trip to Oxford, Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn told media in Fayetteville on Monday.

The No. 5 Razorbacks (17-7, 4-2) lost two of three to Florida this past weekend, with Campbell (6-foot-4, 225 pounds) giving up five earned runs on four hits and four walks without recording an out in the second inning. Florida eventually won 17-2 and then took the series the next day. Arkansas hopes Campbell can return against Auburn the weekend following Ole Miss (22-3, 4-2).

"His elbow is just bugging him a little bit," Van Horn said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "So we had it looked at precautionary, so we're going to give him a week off."

Campbell has allowed 23 hits and 10 earned runs in 27 innings this season. He’s struck out 29 with 16 walks and opponents are hitting .223 off him. His best start this season was a one-run-in-eight-innings effort against Kentucky to open SEC play.

Arkansas will start ace Blaine Knight (4-0, 1.83) on Thursday and Kacey Murphy (3-1, 2.28) on Saturday. Since Murphy threw 106 pitches in 6.1 innings against the Gators last Sunday, Van Horn doesn’t want to push him to Friday this week.

Van Horn brought up freshman right-handers Jackson Rutledge (0.00, 8 IP) and Bryce Bonnin (3.00, 12 IP) and sophomore left-hander Matt Cronin (2.37, 19 IP) as potential options to replace Campbell.

Arkansas is also still without junior right-hander Keaton McKinney, who threw two innings in a start against Bucknell but has missed the five weekends since then. McKinney was outstanding in 87 innings as a freshman in 2015, but a hip ailment caused his production to slide in 2016, and he missed the 2017 season with Tommy John surgery. He felt discomfort in his elbow against Bucknell.

"He's getting close," Van Horn said to media on Monday. "We talked about him a lot on the way back yesterday. It sure would be nice to have that guy back with all that experience because you look at who we have, it's kind of like we have real young pitchers and guys with a lot of experience; there's not much in between."