On paper, Missouri baseball’s loss to Baylor on Thursday night at Taylor Stadium was a close game: It was decided by a 3-1 margin, both teams had six hits and both offenses had trouble cracking each starting pitcher.
But on the field for the Tigers (16-12, 3-4 Big 12 Conference), the outcome appeared to hinge on even less.
A pitch just a few centimeters higher, a bouncing ground ball just a foot to the right, and the game could have turned the other way. It didn’t, though, and the Bears emerged on top.
The game took the form of a pitcher’s duel with Missouri sophomore Rob Zastryzny and Baylor’s Josh Turley duking it out over eight innings. Turley held the advantage, though, walking one batter to Zastryzny’s four and striking out five, two more than the Tigers’ lefty. Turley also threw just 88 pitches compared to Zastryzny’s 124.
Despite his respectable stat line, Zastryzny gave himself a very harsh assessment.
“I made way too many mistakes,” he said. “I’ve pitched kind of like a rookie the last two weeks, and I consider myself a veteran, and I need to start pitching more like it. Too many walks, that’s the bottom line … it’s not like me to walk that many people.”
Baylor’s major breakthrough came in the sixth inning. After putting runners on first and second, a hit and run produced a soft liner that barely cleared junior shortstop Eric Garcia’s glove and scored a run.
Zastryzny had two strikes on Baylor third baseman Cal Towey with two outs, but his 2-2 pitch barely missed low and Towey eventually walked to load the bases. Shortstop Jake Miller again played the game of inches for the Bears, squibbing a grounder past the outstretched glove of senior third baseman Conner Mach to drive in two runs.
Missouri loaded the bases with one out in the ninth but failed to come away with any runs, and the lead would hold for Baylor.
“We’re fighting at the game every time at the end,” junior first baseman Gavin Stark said about the team’s recent string of close losses. “We need to start earlier.”
Players largely attributed their offensive struggles to not sticking to their offensive plan. The Tigers knew Turley was going to pound the zone all game and wanted to focus on getting good swings and hitting the ball hard the other way.
“We were getting ourselves out all game, and then finally we stick to an approach in the ninth inning,” Stark said. “We’ve got to start putting the ball hard in play to the right side more throughout the game, and (rallies) will happen in the fifth, sixth, seventh inning and not just the ninth.”
Coach Tim Jamieson gave a similar assessment.
“You’ve got a guy (Turley) who’s throwing on the bottom part of the zone … and he’s pitching away,” he said. “You’ve got to make adjustments physically, and we didn’t do it, and that’s why we’re hitting soft ground balls to pull side.”
The Tigers’ lone run came off of Stark’s bat, a leadoff home run in the third inning in which he took an inside fastball and corked a high shot down the left field line and into the home bullpen. The dinger was the first of his career.
Missouri will continue its three-game set with Baylor on Friday at Taylor Stadium.
