No. 24 @MizzouBaseball’s Comeback Effort Falls Short at No. 16 LSU

Friday, March 16

Baton Rouge, La.

6:30 p.m.

University of Missouri

14-4, 0-1

LSU

13-6, 1-0

Mizzou

LSU

No. 24 @MizzouBaseball’s Comeback Effort Falls Short at No. 16 LSU

3/16/2018 10:02:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Uncharacteristic walks doom Mizzou in SEC opener

BATON ROUGE, La. – No. 24 Mizzou Baseball dropped its SEC opener at No. 16 LSU, 4-2, Friday evening at Alex Box Stadium. Mizzou's pitching staff limited LSU to just five hits, but 10 walks haunted the Tiger pitching staff as LSU took advantage of free passes all night, scoring four runs. Mizzou's offense pounded out just four hits Friday, but did draw six walks.

Mizzou RS junior RHP Bryce Montes De Oca (Lawrence, Kan.) was charged with the loss, falling to 3-1 on the year. He went 6.0 innings and surrendered just two hits, but walked seven LSU batters in the outing. LSU's Zack Hess earned the win, improving to 3-2 on the year. He went 6.0 innings, scattering three hits with two runs and five walks.

Mizzou's nine-game win streak, which was the longest active streak in the nation, came to end with the loss as it falls to 14-4 (0-1 SEC) and loses for the first time since Feb. 25 vs. Northeastern in Fort Myers, Fla. LSU improves to 13-6 (1-0).

TURNING POINT

Mizzou loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the seventh inning, doing so on three straight walks off LSU starter Zack Hess, who appeared to be out of gas. Mizzou got on the board with a sacrifice fly off the bat of nine-hole hitting SS Chris Cornelius (St. Louis, Mo.) and cut the lead to 3-2 on a groundout by Trey Harris (Powder Springs, Ga.). That brought Kameron Misner (Poplar Bluff, Mo.) to the plate with the go-ahead run on second base, but he flew out to center field to strand the runners.

LSU got a leadoff triple from Brandt Broussard in the bottom of the seventh inning and sophomore LHP T.J. Sikkema (DeWitt, Iowa) pitched Mizzou out of that jam, but a big two-out double in the bottom of the eighth inning by Zach Watson gave LSU the insurance it needed to seal the win. Freshman 2B Mark Vierling (St. Louis, Mo.) singled to lead off the ninth, but the next three Mizzou batters were retired.

QUOTING MIZZOU

Steve Bieser:
"Well there are a lot of things that you could look at as why we lost the ball game, but hopefully it is just a learning lesson for us to just come back and relax and play the game of baseball. It was very uncharacteristic of our pitching staff, very uncharacteristic of our offense – we just didn't play a very good game, but you still have a chance. We had an opportunity to tie the ball game in the last inning and that says something about your ball club. We have to bounce back. "

TOP TIGERS

Senior OF Trey Harris tallied a hit as he has hit safely in 16 of 18 games this season. He leads the team in hits with 24 this season. He added an RBI in the loss.
Junior 3B Brian Sharp also tallied his 24^th hit of the season, a single the other way, in the sixth inning.
Sophomore LHP T.J. Sikkema posted a shutout appearance, tossing 0.2 innings with a strikeout, stranding a leadoff triple allowed before he entered in the seventh inning.

NOTES

Mizzou now trails the all-time series with LSU, 13-0.
Mizzou falls to 23-14 away from home under second-year head coach Steve Bieser.
Mizzou falls to 8-2 in three-game series this season.
Mizzou's nine-game winning streak, which was the longest active streak in the nation, was snapped Friday.
Mizzou was dealt its first Friday-night loss this season, falling to 4-1 on the year. It was Mizzou's first loss in a series opener in five tries dating back to last season.
Mizzou had its streak of eight straight games with a first-inning run snapped Friday night.
Mizzou falls to 2-1 on the season vs. ranked opponents.
Mizzou falls to 8-8 in the opening weekend of SEC play since it joined the league. Mizzou is now 3-3 in SEC openers since joining the league.

UP NEXT

Mizzou and LSU will play game two of the three-game series Saturday at 6 p.m. on SEC Network. For all the latest on Mizzou Baseball, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team on Twitter (@MizzouBaseball) and like the team on Facebook (Mizzou Baseball) and Instagram (missouri_baseball).