When Missouri’s star outfielder Cameron Misner hit a ball well out to right field in the third inning of Wednesday night’s game against Arkansas State with the bases loaded and the Tigers leading the Red Wolves 6-4, he didn’t know what to think.
As the ball neared the wall, right fielder Sky-Lar Culver approached the fence and leapt, stretching his gloved left hand beyond the barrier. First-base umpire Joshua Schepis held his arm up tentatively.
“I thought the wind was going to blow it back in play, and I was like, ‘Man,” Misner said. “But then he jumped up and I was like, ‘Did he catch that?’”
Culver came back to earth. Schepis swung his forearm in a circle. Grand slam.
“It’s usually good when a big guy like that hits it,” head coach Steve Bieser said. “A littler guy hits it, it’s probably not going to get out of there. He hit that ball really well.”
The grand slam, which came with two outs in the third, was the pivotal point in the Tigers’ 14-4 blowout of the Red Wolves (11-7). Missouri (11-5) scored seven runs in the third inning to stretch a 5-4 lead into a 12-4 laugher.
While the Tigers kicked it into gear quickly on offense, they found themselves down abruptly, too. Junior lefty Art Joven scuffled on the mound, giving up four runs in the top of the first and almost doubling his ERA, which now sits at 7.27.
“It was kind of depressing that he just didn’t have success,” Bieser said. “Because the guy has some good stuff, and we think he’s going to help us. It was disheartening to see that outcome today from Art.”
The Tigers quickly evened the score in the bottom of the first, as Mark Vierling came up big with two outs. The sophomore second baseman drove an 0-2 pitch from A-State starter Zachary Patterson into left center field with the bases loaded, scoring all three runners. Tony Ortiz scored all the way from first.
“That’s just a heads-up play. Good hustle play from him to do that,” Bieser said. “The rain was blowing every which way possible, and he noticed right away that the outfielder was going to get to the ball a little late, and he kicked it in. That was huge.”
Misner also came up big, snagging a liner on the run in center with a slide to strand men on the corners in the third.
He capped off the inning with his grand slam, and Chad McDaniel added a two-run homer to left-center in the frame. The first three innings of Wednesday’s game took three hours.
Once the Tigers got two more runs in the fifth, that was all they needed — literally. An obscure rule in nonconference play allows for games to be called after seven innings, with both coaches’ consent, if one team is up 10 or more runs.
Arkansas State coach Tommy Raffo had the idea in mind from the outset, Bieser said, with his team facing a road trip to Alabama this weekend to face Troy. But Raffo didn’t exactly broadcast his intention.
“We didn’t confer with everybody,” Bieser said. “I knew, (Raffo) knew, and the home plate umpire was the only umpire that knew out of the crew.”
So when Cameron Dulle struck out Will Richardson to cap a 1-2-3 seventh inning, triumphant music blared from the speakers and the two teams came out on the field to shake hands, in an abrupt end to the two-game series.
“I didn’t know it was gonna be the game,” Misner said. “I’m glad it was.”
The junior leads the Tigers into SEC play Friday at No. 14 Arkansas. TJ Sikkema will take the ball for the first game of the series, set to start at 6:30 p.m. in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
