Missouri has been hampered by injuries to the pitching staff throughout the season, leaving the Tigers struggling to find enough arms to get through a series, let alone throw out a solid pitching staff.
“I’ll be checking if you have any eligibility left,” Missouri coach Kerrick Jackson said.
That came after the Tigers might have suffered another devastating injury with Friday starter Ian Lohse exiting the first game of the Texas series after firing a high fastball.
“We’re not in a position where we can afford to be down any more pitchers than we’re already down,” Jackson said. “Hopefully, it’s not something long-term. But I don’t feel that good about it.”
There was no official designation for the injury after Friday’s game.
Jackson said the Tigers are expecting multiple pitchers who suffered early-season injuries to return to the diamond in the next few weeks, and are beginning to ramp Sam Horn back up after he left the team for spring football.
“We don’t want to repeat any of the things that happened in the past,” Jackson said of Horn’s ramp-up process. “So as much as we’d love to have him tonight, my job is to protect him from himself and make sure that we go about the process the right way. And yes, obviously, we could really use him, but I know he’s got a bright future and so I want to make sure that we’re doing right by him. So when he’s ready, we’ll definitely be rolling him out.”
Jackson said the process will take as long as it needs, though there are some guidelines in place.
Horn had been getting back to throwing 100 percent as he recovered from his Tommy John surgery in early 2024, but had not yet thrown to batters when he left the baseball team for a three-week tenure with the football team and focused only on playing quarterback.
“We just want to make sure that when we do send him out there, that he’s strong and he’s ready to go,” Jackson said.
But that timeline won’t be less than a few weeks, which means the Tigers have to make it through multiple series before they can get another big arm for the staff.
So they might have to turn to seemingly unconventional options, like they did Friday night when they sent Cayden Nicoletto, the team’s regular first baseman and sometime outfielder, to the mound for the sixth inning. Nicoletto hurled the first scoreless inning of the game for a Tiger pitcher and struck out one batter.
“He threw for us in the fall, he threw for us early spring, but he’s been in the lineup,” Jackson said. “... We knew that he was somebody that we wanted to use, but it just became a tough situation when he’s in the lineup for you every day. How does that work? He dove in practice, in pregame, and kind of bent his thumb up a little bit, so then we knew he wasn’t going to be in the linup, especially facing lefties, … so we knew he wasn’t going to be able to come in to hit. So the opportunity presented itself for him to get in and pitch.”
And Jackson brought up turning to freshman middle infielder Trey Lawrence, who has been in the mix to find a starting shortstop throughout the year, but with Jackson Lovich seeming to take that spot, has been relegated to second base or a backup spot.
“We actually expected Trey Lawrence this year as a true freshman to pitch for us,” Jackson said. “Trey Lawrence is 92-94 on the bump with a nice slider. But (Gehrig) Goldbeck goes down, now all of a sudden you get thrown into the mix. So we’re still in a position, depending upon what happens with the pitching and what we get back with some of these other guys, where, again, we’re playing and we’re scoring runs. What does that mean on the back end of it?”
Hopefully for Jackson’s sake, it means the Tigers will find some arms that can be more effective getting his team outs as Missouri is averaging 12 runs allowed per game through an 0-7 start to SEC play.
“I believe we’re on the verge of being able to do some really good things,” Jackson said. “The young guys that we’ve put in there have gotten experience … there’s some really good upside still in the program. It’s just a matter of, can we string everything together and just start playing good baseball.”
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