In each of their two games against the No. 20 Georgia Bulldogs, the Missouri Tigers have seen their spirits dashed in the form of a high fly ball sailing up and over the right field wall.
The one that came Friday night — a bullet of a solo homer from designated hitter Michael Curry off reliever Nile Ball — was one-fourth as valuable as the Adam Sasser grand slam that came the evening before, but it stung just as much. Curry’s eighth home run of the season was the second go-ahead home run in as many games, and it propelled the Bulldogs to a 5-3 victory and a series win over Missouri (30-17).
“Nile made a good pitch” said Michael Plassmeyer, who allowed three earned runs in seven innings. “The kid’s a good hitter, and he just took it the other way and took it out.”
The weekend hasn’t been kind to Missouri, which has now dropped its last two SEC series and carries a 9-14 conference record. The Tigers are now in danger of missing the conference tournament. Twelve teams qualify and Missouri currently has the 13th-best winning percentage. Friday’s game was a microcosm of the season, which has been chock full of opportunities, many of which the Tigers have failed the capitalize on.
Five times did MU have a runner in scoring position against UGA, and in each instance, the Tigers failed to get a hit. The most painful of the bunch came last, and it came from Brett Bond. Bond, who has seen a significant drop in offensive production in this senior season — his OPS has dropped from .892 in 2017 to .720 this year — faced an opportunity to erase all of that in the eighth inning.
With Missouri trailing 4-3, Bond strode to the plate with the tying and go-ahead runs aboard with two outs. A single would have tied the game. An extra base hit likely would give the Tigers the lead. On a 3-2 offering from Zac Kristofak, Bond swung out of his cleats, but the ball zipped clean past his bat and into the catcher’s mitt for an inning ending strikeout. His second K of the game put him in the team lead in that category with 42.
“Brett’s pressing,” coach Steve Bieser said. “He’s just really pressing and trying to do too much. When you start doing that, you start changing things every single day and trying to find the magic. I just think that he’s just really struggling right now.”
The horror didn’t end there for the catcher. A frame later with two outs, Nile Ball was late covering first base on a ground ball to Brian Sharp. After seeing the Bulldog at third base dart home, Sharp fired a strike to Bond, who had an easy tag in front of him but dropped the ball.
Georgia’s lead was pushed to 5-3, and that’s where it stayed, as the Tigers saw their postseason odds drop just a little bit more again. Bond’s error was one of the two Missouri committed. Both resulted in a Georgia run — the Bulldogs’ third run came in the third, when Michael Plassmeyer threw errantly to first, allowing Aaron Schunk to score.
“We can’t have mental mistakes this time of year,” Bieser said. “Just not getting over to cover the bag and all that. You go into the ninth with a one-run deficit, it’s much more difficult for that other team. It puts more pressure on them. But when you give them that insurance run late in the game, it took a little pressure off them and they were able to settle in and win the series.”
After Tennessee defeated Kentucky 6-2 Friday night, the loss leaves MU at the bottom of the SEC East standings. After starting with a 5-4 record in the conference, the Tigers have slipped, losing four out of their past five conference series.
Missouri has two SEC series remaining — at South Carolina next weekend and Tennessee at home the weekend after that — and one has to imagine both are must wins if it has hopes of breaking into the postseason for the first time since 2012.
“There was a lot riding on this series,” Bieser said. “There was a lot in front of us, and there’s still a lot in front of us. What we can’t do is panic at this time. We understand that we’re playing with a short deck right now. We basically have two outfielders on our roster right now, and we’ve got to find a way to put a lineup out there.”
The Tigers will look to salvage a win Saturday at 2 p.m. Bieser hinted at a potential bullpen game, as Tyler LaPlante, Bryce Montes de Oca and Andy Toelken are all rested and available.
“I’ve just got to really look at it and see if we want to give them a lefty for the third day in a row,” Bieser said. “All those guys are ready to go, and it could be a situation where we just bullpen it and ask each guy to get three solid innings.”
