Mizzou Baseball's Fourth-Inning Heroics Not Enough in Loss to Kansas

Missouri fell 11-8 in the second and final game of the season against their border-state rivals, Kansas.

The loss extended Missouri's losing streak against the Jayhawks to five games, the largest skid since a six-game streak between 2010 and 2011.

In front of a regular-season attendance record of 3,207 people, Missouri looked flat through the first three-and-a-half innings. The Tigers came into the bottom of the fourth inning facing a substantial 6-0 deficit, but the sell-out crowd helped ignite Missouri.

“They showed up, showed out and totally fired us up,” graduate infielder Jase Woita said after the game. “That’s the best home crowd I’ve ever been a part of.”

As the game was shaping up to be a repeat of the first contest between the foes on Jan. 18, a 10-0 loss in seven innings, it appeared that Missouri was gearing up to avenge the loss with a remarkable comeback.

The reeling Tigers scored eight runs in the fourth inning, taking a 8-6 lead.

Three Tigers ended the inning with multiple RBI, as Juliomar Campos launched the first home run of his career, Kaden Peer hit a two-run single and Blaize Ward knocked a three-RBI triple in the fourth inning.

But the flurry in the fourth proved to be insufficient, as Missouri's mound difficulties, which resulted in 49 runs allowed in its previous four games, became a bigger factor in the loss. Those struggles began early, as the Tigers allowed six runs in four innings, eventually leading to a Kansas onslaught of 11 runs and 11 hits.

“Usually when you put up a big crooked number like that you should put yourself in a position to win,” head coach Kerrick Jackson said. “But we didn't keep pressing… We tried to do too much after that.”

Starting on the mound for Missouri was PJ Green, who allowed four runs and five hits in 2.1 innings. Green was handed the starting role Tuesday after a successful outing against Illinois, but couldn't avoid the hot Kansas bats that reappeared in the second and final game between the rivals.

Control was also an issue for Green, who walked four batters and threw ten straight balls during the first inning. That would set the standard for a Missouri squad that walked nine batters in the contest.

But in the eighth inning it was a bat that bested the Tigers, as Tyson Leblanc hit a three-run home run against freshman pitcher Eli Skidmore. Leblanc was Skidmore's first batter faced after replacing Kadden Drew, who had given up a run and allowed two runners on base to start the eighth inning.

“We weren't necessarily executing pitches where we wanted (them) to be executed, and they just did a good job of putting the ball in play and giving themselves a chance,” Jackson said.

Besides the fourth inning the Tigers were stagnant offensively on Tuesday, striking similarities to the first game against Kansas. Missouri recorded six hits in the fourth inning but ended the game with nine total hits.

Missouri baseball will look to snap its five-game losing streak against No. 24 Kentucky in its next series, beginning Friday at 5:30 p.m. in Lexington, Kentucky.

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