Mizzou Travels to SMS for In-State Battle
4/26/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 26, 2005
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No. 14 Mizzou will take on Southwest Missouri State at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in Springfield, Mo. in an in-state battle. MU is 30-10 on the season, while the Bears enter the game with a 12-25 record.
MIZZOU-SMS SERIES
The all-time series between Missouri and Southwest Missouri State is currently tied at 16 wins each.
Last season each team won on the other team's home field by a 5-4 score. Mizzou took the first meeting of the 2004 season in 10 innings in Springfield, before SMS took the second matchup in Columbia a week later.
HOMECOMING FOR PRATTE
Missouri assistant coach Evan Pratte will return to his alma mater on Tuesday. Pratte was a standout infielder for Southwest Missouri State from 1988-91, leading the Bears to three conference titles. He was a first-team all-conference selection in 1990 and 1991.
Pratte finished his career with 18 home runs, 152 RBI, and a .335 batting average.
He remains in the top 10 in several categories in the SMS career record book including assists (2nd), triples (3rd), sacrifice hits (3rd), sacrifice flies (3rd), total bases (4th), game-winning RBI (4th), double plays turned (4th) walks (6th), hits (8th) and runs scored (8th).
Pratte began his coaching experience as a volunteer assistant coach with SMS in 1996-97, before coming to Mizzou.
BIG START TO THE BIG 12
Mizzou won eight of its first nine Big 12 Conference games this year, its best conference start since the 1981 team opened Big Eight play 8-1.
In 1980, MU opened the Big Eight portion of the schedule with a 9-1 record. That season, the Tigers won the conference title.
AT THE POLLS
The Tigers are ranked in all four national polls, with a No. 14 ranking in Baseball America being the highest. The National Baseball Writers' Association has MU at No. 17, Collegiate Baseball ranks the Tigers No. 16 and the USA Today/ESPN Top 25 has Missouri at No. 24.
MU has been ranked as high as No. 13 in both the Baseball America poll and the Collegiate Baseball poll, its highest ranking since it reach the 13th spot in 1981.
STAT TRACKS
Mizzou's pitching staff ranks second in the Big 12 Conference with a 2.64 ERA led by sophomore Max Scherzer, who leads the Big 12 with a 1.09 ERA on the year.
All three of MU's probable weekend starters are among the top 16 in the conference in ERA. Following Scherzer, junior Doug Mathis is 10th with a 2.73 ERA and sophomore Nathan Culp's 3.30 mark is 16th best in the league.
Scherzer also leads the Big 12 Conference with 95 strikeouts. His 12.95 K's per game average is more than two strikeouts per game ahead of second place. He also leads the league with an opponents batting average of just .125.
Junior Taylor Parker is tied for fifth with his four saves on the season for the Tigers.
Sophomore Hunter Mense is tied for second in the conference with a batting average of .400. Junior James Boone is ninth (.360) and freshman Jacob Priday is 24th (.328).
Boone has 63 runs batted in, which is second in the Big 12, one spot ahead of Priday's 49 RBI.
The Tigers are second the Big 12 in runs scored with 384 and have four players in the top 10 in runs scored led by sophomore's John McKee's 50. Mense and junior Derek Chambers have each scored 45 runs, tied for fifth best and Boone is tied for eighth with 40 runs.
McKee is second in both walks (41) and on base percentage (.508). Mense is third in on base percentage (.507), while Boone is fifth (.494) and Priday is 10th (.448).
HITS KEEP ON COMING
The longest hitting streak of the season for the Tigers was junior James Boone's 12-game streak last month. Junior Derek Chambers had a 10-game hitting streak earlier in the year.
Entering the week, junior Trevor Helms and freshman Jacob Priday have the longest hitting streaks in tact, having both reached safely in the last four games.
BOONE DOCKS
Junior James Boone leads the team with 63 RBI on the year. At his current rate, he would finish the season with 88 RBI, which would be the second most in a season in MU history, behind just Aaron Jaworowski's 101 RBI in 1996.
Boone had six RBI in Mizzou's win over Texas Tech on April 1 and has twice had five RBI in a game this year.
He was named the Big 12 Conference Player of the Week on March 15 after hitting an astonishing .786 (11-for-14) in Mizzou's four games the previous week.
It was the second Big 12 Player of the Week honor for Boone in his career, as he earned the award almost a year ago to the day, March 16, 2004.
Included in his 11 hits during that week were a home run, a triple and a double. He drove in 13 runs in the four games.
TO THE MAX
Sophomore Max Scherzer not only leads the Big 12 Conference but is in the top 10 in the nation with a 1.09 ERA. He is 6-1 on the season with one of the victories being a combined no-hitter with Michael Cole on April 1 against Texas Tech.
Scherzer also leads the Big 12 with 95 strikeouts on the season. At his current pace, he would finish the regular season with 133 strikeouts.
That would set a new record, passing John Dettmer's 127 K's in 1991. Scherzer's 95 strikeouts already rank seventh best in school history.
Scherzer was named the Big 12 Conference Pitcher of the Week and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association National Pitcher of the Week after the no-hitter on April 1. Collegiate Baseball Newspaper also named Scherzer and Cole among the National Players of the Week. Last week, Scherzer was invited to tryout for the USA National Team.
MENSE JUST MAKES SENSE
Missouri's leading hitter, sophomore Hunter Mense, is tied for second in the Big 12 Conference with a .400 batting average.
He has hit .444 in Big 12 Conference games and has had 20 hits, including four doubles in the 12 Big 12 games in which he has played. He missed the Oklahoma State series as he recovered from a knee injury.
In his first series back from the injury, Mense hit .455 in the three-game series against Oklahoma last weekend.
THE McKEE TO VICTORY
Mizzou sophomore John McKee leads the team with a .508 on-base percentage, which is also second best in the Big 12. He is fifth on the team with 39 hits and leads the team in both walks (41) and hit-by-pitches (19). He drew a walk in each of his first four at-bats against SLU last Wednesday.
His 19 hit-by-pitches is a new school record for HBPs in a season, passing John Hay who was hit by a pitch 18 times in 1993.
Once on base, he has been able to find his way to the plate, as he leads the team and the Big 12 Conference with 50 runs scored this season.
LIGHTING UP THE SCOREBOARD
Missouri has outscored its opponents 384-136 this season and has recorded double-digits in runs in exactly half of its 40 games. That includes a stretch of nine straight games with at least 10 runs from March 6-March 20. The Tigers are averaging just under 10 runs a game, while holding their opponents to under four runs per outing.
Mizzou has scored 25 runs twice this season, recording a 25-2 win over Navy on Feb. 25 and a 25-0 win over Texas Tech on April 1.
Earlier this year, MU outscored North Dakota State 55-4 in a four-game series and the previous week, it swept a three-games series from Youngstown State by a combined score of 42-2.
ZEROS ACROSS THE BOARD
Hidden behind the high scoring offense the Tigers have had this season, is many impressive pitching outings for Mizzou. MU has a 2.59 ERA heading into this the week, which ranks second in the Big 12 Conference.
All three of Mizzou's probable weekend starters are in the top 16 in the Big 12 Conference in ERA, led by sophomore Max Scherzer, with a Big 12 best 1.09 ERA.
Junior Doug Mathis has a 2.73 ERA, which is 10th best in the league and sophomore Nathan Culp is 16th in the Big 12 with a 3.30 ERA.
The Tigers have recorded six shutouts this season. They had five all of last year. Among the six shutouts was the first no-hitter at MU since 1981, when Scherzer and sophomore Michael Cole combined to no-hit Texas Tech on April 1.
MU had stretch of 26 innings of shutout ball from March 14 (vs. Youngstown State) to March 19 (vs. North Dakota State). Earlier this season the Tigers put together 23-innings of not allowing a run.
STREAKING
Missouri's loss to Texas Tech on April 3 was its first defeat since Eastern Michigan knocked off the Tigers 7-6 on March 5. The 15-game winning streak from March 6-April 2 was the longest for Mizzou since it won 16 straight in 1985. The longest winning streak in school history was 18 games set by the 1964 team.
During Mizzou's 15-game winning streak the Tigers outscored its opponents 179-28. They had a .319 batting average, while holding their opponents to a .176 mark. MU had a slugging percentage of .451 and an on-base percentage of .489, compared to its opponents' .222 slugging percentage and .265 on-base percentage.
Missouri's ERA over the 15 games was just 1.62, while the opponents' ERA was 11.01 Opposing pitchers walked 123 batters, hit 42 and had 24 wild pitches. MU walked 41, hit 12 and had just two wild pitches during the streak.
