'Consistently Inconsistent': Kerrick Jackson on Missouri Baseball's Duality This Season

The Tigers have looked like two different teams throughout the 2024 season.

The team who swept then No. 6 Florida was the same team who dropped a mid-week game to Southern Illinois Univeristy- Edwardsville just days later.

Missouri baseball head coach Kerrick Jackson said that he knew SIUE would be a trap game going in, he told his players it was going to be one. Yet they still fell into the trap.

Jackson simply says the reason they lost was because they played bad baseball. It happened then and it happened again in the third game of their series against LSU, in which their opponents scored six unanswered runs in five innings, and it has happened before those games.

"We just didn't play good baseball," Jackson said following the series loss to LSU. "We didn't execute our pitches, we didn't have quality at bats."

A team that has wins against now No. 4 Kentucky, Georgia and a series sweep of Florida, would likely not also be expected to also have losses to Southeast Missouri, SIUE, a series loss to Northern Kentucky and a series split with Purdue Fort Wayne. But it's true, the same team did both.

"I feel like broken record," Jackson said. "Unfortunately, we're seeing who we are. We are seeing the ups and downs. We just got to continue to coach them up, to get them to grow up and be a little more consistent."

The key to turning things around for this young Missouri team is just to continue and learn. To take the things they did well and improve on them. In their games they are playing "bad baseball', focus on what is going right and not spiral further. In every series and game, Jackson just wants to see his team do one thing.

"Same thing I've been saying all year, play good baseball and be consistent," Jackson said. "Throw strikes, have quality at bats, play good defense. We are still working on it."

The Tigers have proven already this season that they can dig their way out of holes, but Jackson says now that they need to stop digging the holes in the first place. They need to get ahead and stay ahead.

"It is inspiring that you dig yourself a 20-foot hole and work to climb out of it," Jackson said. "Hopefully we don't dig that hole in the future. The fact that there is some grit and there's some fight in out guys that we can battle through adversity is a good sign. Now let's have that adversity not be self inflicted."

In the recent games that the Tigers have taken an early lead and not started down, they have had a much greater success rate. In each of the three games of the sweep against Florida, Missouri took the lead in the first and rarely gave it back.

But even if the Tigers took the early lead, there was almost no way of knowing if their bats would keep going or if they would just go quiet. Some days, the bats were just no where to be found.

"it really comes down to the offensive side of things," Jackson said. "Making sure that we're a little bit more consistent with what we're doing there. We have some really good offensive outings and then out of nowhere we just go blank."

Jumping back to the beginning of the season, take the Northern Kentucky series for example. A game in which Missouri got 17 hits for 28 runs through seven innings was sandwiched between two losses to the same team, the first game only having three runs come in for the Tigers.

Missouri has shown signs that they can compete in the SEC, but they disappear as quickly as they pop up. The Tigers offense will have a resurgence and the defense will make multiple web gems one game and then show why they are second of the SEC in errors in the next game — or maybe even in the same game.

"You either play the game the right way or you don't play the game the right way," Jackson said.

The Missouri head coach has summarized the season pretty well with the use of a simple phrase. If they win, Jackson says it with a chuckle. If they lose, he deadpans it.

"We're consistently inconsistent."

It's how he starts many conference after the teams has drastically different performances between two games. It's been one of the few things that have been consistent about the the season.

"You saw what happened [in game one against LSU] and then we come out tonight and it's a whole new team, so it's funny," Jackson said. "Hopefully at some point, it's going to click for them and we're just going to be the same every game regardless of win or loss but were working on it."

While many are focusing on the troubles of the Missouri team, they will miss the brighter aspects that are showing and the promising future that can already be seen. The signs of hope can be seen in both their biggest wins and heart-breaking losses.

"This is a win and a game in the process of developing a program that is going to be successful for a long time," Jackson said following game one against Florida. "We'll look back on this and talk about how this helped us get to that point. But in the grand scheme of things, it's another game that we played well, but there were mistakes that we made and we need to capitalize and fix. We got more to do."

While inconsistent, Missouri has shown that they could be stellar at the plate if they practiced a bit more discipline. They have many players who continually get clutch hits, home runs and everything else needed for the Tigers, but it is surrounded by missed opportunities.

"We do the same thing every day [in practice]," Jackson said. "We don't mix it up. It is what it is and, unfortunately, I think when our guys get across the line and anxiety sets in. We search for results and we just don't play the game the way it's supposed to be played."

Their current struggle seems to be swinging on pitches they shouldn't and giving their opponents room to take advantage of it. Missouri has struck out 420 times through 41 games.

"They really didn't have to do that much," Jackson said about the LSU pitching staff. "We chased a lot. We didn't force them to throw strikes consistently."

The offense has continued to be up and down, but Missouri's pitching staff has remained fairly consistent throughout the season. They have their young arms that have helped carry them through multiple games this year and will hopefully carry into next season.

"Pitching has been kind of steady these last couple weekends," Jackson said.

The Tigers may be in the bottom of the SEC stats for most pitching categories. But watching their starters, it wouldn't seem like it. Obviously, everyone has a rough outing now and then, but they've been fairly limited for many of the Missouri hurlers.

Junior Javyn Pimental has been the anchor of the rotation, weekly doing his job for the team and giving them a chance if the bats come alive. Half of their SEC wins have come during a Pimental pitching performance. He holds one of the lowest ERAs on the team and the lowest of the starters.

Sophomore Brock Lucas has continually shut down his opponents in relief and holds the lowest ERA on the team with a 2.73 average and holding 20 strikeouts through 29 2/3 innings pitched. Him and the other young pitchers can hopefully learn during this season and be even better next.

"We've had good pitching performances, played good defense for the most part," Jackson said. "But we've been a little bit lax on the offensive side of things."

Their one other main consistency for most of the season had been their infield. Three of their infielders have played in 75 percent of games, the only times its changed has been because of injury.

As mentioned by Jackson, a little less inconsistency could do the team some good, but that will only happen through more trial and error. The Tigers are on the road to being a consistently great team, they just aren't there yet.

"If [we] just go out and play the way we're capable of playing, we can beat anybody," Jackson said. "We've been preaching that since the beginning of the year."