It was almost as if it were still the 10th inning against Texas A&M, when both the literal and figurative heat of the May day’s 9-9 deadlock held a Big 12 Conference championship at ransom.
Missouri hitters Ben Turner and Blake Brown bounced with excitement. Ace senior starter Eric Anderson beamed with confidence. Even coach Tim Jamieson expressed some rare signals all was well with the Missouri Tigers.
But it wasn’t May in Oklahoma City, Okla. It was Tuesday afternoon in the McArtor Baseball Facility in Columbia, where freshman pitcher Rob Zastryzny’s urge to tell the world how excited he was precluded a preseason practice.
Excitement resonates in the MU baseball practice facility every year around this time, when the melting snow of a subdued Missouri winter makes room for Taylor Stadium to sprout its familiar green turf.
But this year, there’s something more, say the players.
“It’s a totally different feeling than the previous years, I feel like,” Anderson said. “Obviously, we’re excited for the season, but there’s just something different about this group.”
The Tigers, picked to finish fifth in the Big 12 Conference, are certainly experienced entering a new and final season as a member of the league before moving to the Southeastern Conference. Six of the top seven hitters return to the lineup to complement two rotational starters coming back.
But more than the games played or number of bats swung, Jamieson praised the team’s attitude and jovial clubhouse feel — an excitement that extends beyond Tuesday’s light-hearted media day.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “We’ve had a tradition of playing in the postseason. This is the best team we’ve had since 2008 in terms of talent and experience.”
Each one of Jamieson’s returning players vividly remembers that final loss of the 2011 season, when the wild fever of a spontaneous Big 12 tournament run inspired the league’s 10th-placed team to take a few more swings at reclamation. That was when Aggies second baseman Andrew Collazo belted a 10th-inning pitch into NCAA Tournament play and the Tigers into an offseason full of what-ifs.
“Mentally, I think about it when I’m working out, and if I’m tired on the last lap, I think about the Big 12 Tournament and how we lost by one run,” Zastryzny said. “Maybe 10 more reps in the weight room, we would have won or something.”
For Zastryzny and many of the experienced Tigers, that opportunity will come as soon as Friday.
**Staff of starters**
The Tigers also can’t hide the excitement they hold in their starting rotation. Anderson and Zastryzny are just the top two names in a very deep and talented pool of hurlers, but for good reason.
Right-handed Anderson returned last April from shoulder surgery in time for a series against Baylor. That series was the start of a campaign in which Anderson finished 3-0 with a 4.93 ERA, one where the team went 6-1 in his seven starts. That series was what Jamieson cited as the turning point of the season.
“It really started when Eric Anderson got into our rotation and started pitching on Friday nights, and then that made everyone else better,” Jamieson said. “It’s not that simple, but that was the one thing you can point to and say that’s the thing that got them going.”
Anderson has spent the offseason building back up to pre-surgery form, a process that has showcased inspiring results.
“From a coach’s eye, his arm is quicker, his delivery is better, he’s in better shape, which should mean we should see a jump in him somewhere,” Jamieson said.
Weekend play will see Anderson on Friday nights before deferring to Zastryzny for the Saturday showdowns. The southpaw’s 4.33 ERA as the Tigers’ Friday starter in 2011 — the first year an MU freshman held the spot in Jamieson’s memory — earned him a spot on the all-Big 12 Freshman Team.
The final spot in the weekend rotation will go to sophomore transfer and right-hander Jeff Cline, who went 6-3 with a 2.30 ERA for Maple Woods Community College last season.
Jamieson said the rest of the rotation remains up for grabs.
**A familiar lineup**
With eight members of the projected 2012 lineup gathering at least nine starts in 2011, it’s safe to say inexperience won’t be a plague of the Tiger offense.
The Missouri offense that averaged just 4.4 runs in the 2011 regular season broke out for an average of 6.6 runs when the going got toughest in the Big 12 Tournament.
The mix of experience and late-season momentum has Jamieson pleased with what his lineup projects for 2012.
“It’s a team that knows how to handle the bat, (so) we can do different things offensively,” Jamieson said, adding the group’s weakness is its lack of home run power. “And it’s a team that has experience, so it’ll be interesting to see what we can do against pitchers we haven’t seen in a while.”
The Tigers figure to lead off with junior outfielder Brannon Champagne (.294 batting average in 2011) again. Champagne made 60 appearances in the top two spots of the lineup in 2011, leading the Tigers in on-base percentage at .398.
Other notable Tiger hitters include Brown (all-Big 12 Honorable Mention as the team’s leader in steals), who will join Champagne in the outfield, and senior infielder Conner Mach, the team’s returning leader in extra base hits and the player Jamieson listed as the team’s best hitter.
Mach was excited about the continuity of the lineup.
“We don’t have very many question marks this year in the lineup as far as who is going to do what with all the guys coming back,” he said. “It’s going to be a pretty solid team. I don’t think there’s going to be too many major changes like we saw last season.”
The Tigers will welcome some new faces in the form of a deep freshman class. The 2012 recruiting crop pulled in 13 new players, nine of whom will join the pitching staff. Headlining that group is right-hander Brett Graves, who will have a chance to be Missouri’s closer.
But for all the Missouri Tigers project for the 2012 season, what they don’t want is to continue waiting for it to arrive.
It might have something to do with that last pitch they saw at the end of May.
“Go out big,” Brown listed as his goal for a final season in the Big 12. “Try to leave them with a sour taste in their mouth. Try to win that championship and make sure they can’t take that away from us.”