April 21, 2010
MIZZOU vs KANSAS
Date: April 21, 2010
First Pitch: 6:30 p.m.
Series History: MU leads 212-123-2
Last Year's at Kauffman: KU def. MU, 7-3
Stadium: Kauffman Stadium
Radio: KTGR 100.5-FM / 1580-AM
Live Audio: KTGR.com
Live Gametracker: mutigers.com
More Information: mutigers.com
FIRST PITCH
For the third-straight year, Missouri and Kansas will meet at Kauffman Stadium ... First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday ...The Tigers are 19-16 on the year, while Kansas enters the game with a 23-14-1 record ... Wednesday's game will not count toward the conference records of each team ... It will also not count in the annual Border Showdown competition, in which the Tigers currently hold a 17-11.5 lead ... MU and KU will meet May 7-9 in Lawrence, Kan. in a three-game Big 12 series ... The Jayhawks have won each of the previous two meetings at Kauffman Stadium ... Mizzou leads the all-time series with Kansas, 212-132-2, and has won each of the last three season series ... This weekend, the Tigers will return home to face Kansas State in a three-game set ... Game one of the weekend will get underway at 6 p.m. on Friday, with games at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
LAST TIME OUT
After taking game one of its series with Oklahoma State last weekend, Mizzou dropped the next two games to fall to 4-8 in the Big 12. Junior Nick Tepesch picked up the victory in game one of the weekend last Friday. Tepesch struck out eight and allowed just two runs on four hits in seven innings pitched. Junior Kelly Fick turned in two scoreless innings in relief to earn the save. OSU pulled even in the series with a 10-7 win on Saturday. Missouri trailed 10-2 after four innings of play, but scored four times in the seventh, once in the ninth and got the tying run at the plate when the final out was recorded. Sunday's series finale went down to the final inning as a home run by Oklahoma State's Dean Green in the top of the ninth inning broke a 3-3 tie, giving OSU the game and series victory.
MIZZOU-KANSAS SERIES HISTORY
Missouri leads the all-time series with Kansas, 212-123-2. Wednesday's game will mark the third time the two teams have met at Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium in a non-conference contest, with KU taking the win in each of the first two meetings. The Tigers have won the three-game Big 12 series between the two teams in each of the last three years.
SENNE PUTS TOGETHER LONGEST HITTING STREAK AT MU SINCE 2002
Aaron Senne had a 17-game hitting streak from March 17-April 14. The streak was the longest by a Tiger since Jayce Tingler hit safely in 24-straight games in 2002. Senne had at least two hits in six-straight games from April 4-11 and had three hits in five of those contests. During the 17-game stretch, he hit .551, with five home runs, 10 doubles and 24 RBI. The streak began when he went 2-for-3 in game two of a doubleheader with North Dakota on March 19. He had two hits in each of the first three games of the streak and has had 11 multi-hit games. That includes a four-hit game in the series finale with Texas A&M and a 5-for-5 night against Purdue on March 30. He was 3-for-5 in the series opener with Oklahoma, before recording two hits in game two. He closed the weekend with a 3-for-5 performance with four RBI. His last hit of the finale was a home run in the eighth inning that broke a tie score and took Mizzou to a 12-11 win. He earned his second Big 12 Conference Player of the Week award after the series at Oklahoma.
SENNE CLIMBING SEVERAL LISTS IN MU RECORD BOOK
Aaron Senne had back-to-back two-double games on March 28-30 to set a new record for career doubles at Missouri. After doubling in consecutive at-bats against Texas A&M on March 28 to move into a tie for first with Ryan Fry (1995-98) on Mizzou's career doubles, Senne went 5-for-5 with a home run and two doubles against Purdue on March 30 to break the record. He now has 63 career doubles, putting him atop that list. Senne has 16 doubles on the year, which ranks second in the Big 12. His .449 average leads the conference and is 11th best in the nation. He leads the team with 10 home runs on the year and has 36 home runs for his career, which puts him sixth all-time at Missouri. He is one away from moving into a tie with Cody Ehlers (2001-04) for fifth place. Senne is third in school history with 193 RBI and is third with 268 career hits, which is just six behind the career record holder Jayce Tingler (2000-03). Senne returned to Mizzou this season for his senior year, passing up a chance to join his hometown Minnesota Twins organization. A native of Rochester, Minn., he was drafted by Minnesota in last June's Major League Baseball Draft, but chose to return to Missouri.
NICHOLAS ADAPTS TO MIZZOU
Junior Brett Nicholas takes an 11-game hitting streak heading into the week. That is after he had an eight-game hitting from March 7-19, hitting .522 during that streak with three home runs and 12 RBI. During the current streak, Nicholas is hitting .444 and has 12 RBI. He has recorded a hit in 26 of the 34 games in which he's had an at-bat this year and he has 19 multi-hit games. He had at least two hits in six-consecutive games from April 3-10 and 10-of-11 games between March 27-April 10. On the year, Nicholas is hitting .380 with seven home runs and a team-leading 42 RBI. Earlier in the year, he hit .444 with a slugging percentage of 1.444 in the three games against North Dakota. He had a home run in the series opener, then hit two homers in the first game of a Friday doubleheader. Nicholas hit .625 (5-for-8) in the Xavier series (March 12-14).
MU IS ONLY TEAM WITH THREE-STRAIGHT 16-BIG 12 CONFERENCE WIN SEASONS
Missouri is the only team in the Big 12 Conference that has won at least 16 conference games in each of the last three seasons. MU was 19-8 in 2007, then went 16-11 in both 2008 and 2009. The Tigers Big 12 record over the last three years is 51-30, which is second best in the Big 12 behind only Texas (53-27-1).
OPEL RECORDS MU'S FIRST THREE DOUBLE GAME SINCE 2002
Freshman Dane Opel was 3-for-4 in the final game of the three-game series with Baylor, with all three hits being doubles. He is the first Tiger to record a three-double game since Brad Flanders did it against Louisiana-Monroe in 2002. Opel had a six-game hitting streak from March 28-April 6, hitting .591 over that stretch, with two home runs, four doubles and 11 RBI. He had multiple hits in five-straight games from March 28-April 4, including three hits against Purdue on March 30, when he drove in four runs. In Big 12 games, Opel has a .429 average, which is second on the team. He went 4-for-5 in his debut as a Tiger on Feb. 20 against Washington and had a hit in each of the first three games in which he has played.
35 GAMES, 34 LINEUPS
Head Coach Tim Jamieson has utilized 34 different lineups in 35 games this year. Jamieson's lineup last Saturday against Oklahoma State was identical to Friday's lineup vs. OSU. That was the first repeated lineup of the season. Five different Tigers have been in the leadoff spot and four have hit cleanup. The spot in the lineup with the least amount of change is third spot where only two players (Aaron Senne 25 times, Brett Nicholas 10 times) have been slotted. The seventh spot has seen the most changes, as 10 different Tigers have hit in the seven hole.
UP NEXT
Mizzou will host Kansas State this weekend at Taylor Stadium in a three-game Big 12 Conference series. The Tigers and Wildcats will open the series at 6 p.m. on Friday. Saturday's game will start at 2 p.m. and will be televised by FSN. The series finale is Sunday at 1p.m.