Many times this season, the Missouri baseball team (23-22, 7-12 Big 12 Conference) has broken out of slumps by receiving assistance from the opposition in the form of errors, walks and the like.
It happened in the home-opening series against Ball State and again in the team’s recent sweep of Kansas State. And it almost happened again Friday night in the series opener against Texas at Taylor Stadium, but Missouri came up short, losing its fifth straight 6-4.
The team’s recent offensive struggles were clearly visible Friday as the Tigers dropped their fifth straight contest. Texas’ Parker French held Missouri hitless until the fifth inning, when the Tigers were trailing 5-0.
Junior first baseman Andreas Plackis broke the streak, though, by tripling to deep left-center field. After Case Munson walked, lefty Hoby Milner came in to replace French after he left injured. Milner then gifted the Tigers with their first run in 13 innings by balking Plackis home.
After getting two clean runs in the sixth, Missouri was the beneficiary of more Texas mistakes in the seventh. Junior shortstop Eric Garcia reached third after he doubled and moved over on a sacrifice bunt. He was driven home on sophomore second baseman Dillon Everett’s easy grounder to shortstop to make the score 5-4.
But all Tigers ended up being safe on the play, as Texas’ Jordan Etier slipped and fell while fielding the ball. With junior right fielder Blake Brown up, Everett advanced all the way to third on an errant pickoff by Milner. Brown couldn’t capitalize and tie the game, though, striking out after running the count to 3-0.
“I got the green light from coach (Tim Jamieson) and kind of made up my mind at that point that I was going to swing,” Brown said. “It was just what we call a rookie mistake. (I’ve) just got to calm myself down next time and not let the situation get too big.”
Despite coming up short in the end, Jamieson still spoke positively about the team’s ability to generate runs.
“The thing we did tonight that we haven’t been doing is … we scored our four runs on three hits, and we executed and we moved guys over,” he said. “We put guys at third base with less than two outs and the guys knocked them in, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Sophomore lefty Rob Zastryzny started for Missouri and, despite surrendering five earned runs, was able to eat up 7 2/3 innings and give the Tigers’ bullpen a rest.
“That was my goal, when they put me out Friday after (junior ace) Eric (Anderson) went down, was to keep us in games and go late into games,” Zastryzny said. “I feel like I went long enough, it’s just I didn’t give solid innings the whole way through.”
Jamieson emphasized the importance of Zastryzny going long, particularly after Missouri’s midweek series at Arkansas, which rendered arms such as freshman John Miles and senior Jeff Emens unavailable.
“Just like last Friday when he gave us a complete game, tonight was big because we only had to have a handful of pitches from the two relievers (junior Jake Walsh and redshirt freshman Ryan Yuengel),” Jamieson said.
Despite the loss, the Tigers were still satisfied with their ability to execute and have confidence moving forward.
“When teams give us opportunities, we’ve got to make the most of it, and I thought we did a really good job of doing that today,” Brown said. “… but (we were) just a few opportunities too short.”
Emens will get the start for Missouri at 1 p.m. Saturday against the Longhorns at Taylor Stadium.
