Early in the season, especially at the start of SEC play, the Missouri Tigers were regularly forced to play fewer than nine innings as they were routinely losing by more than 10 runs.
But for about the past half month, the Tigers have lost as many games by three runs or less they have lost by more than three.
Missouri has gotten closer on the field as numerous pitchers have rejoined the team recovering from injury.
“We’re getting better pitching performances, we’re taking strides,” Missouri coach Kerrick Jackson said. “And so, that’s kind of the thing, it’s like, ‘Hey fellas, we’re taking strides. Now, let’s stop doing dumb sh–.’”
But now, it’s not external forces losing games for the Tigers. Now, the forces are internal.
“We’re starting to get ourselves in a position where it’s not that the pitching isn’t holding us (back), it’s now that we’re doing things to beat ourselves,” Jackson said. “Being able to point that out to them and really emphasize when you’re beating yourselves, that means you’re in control.”
The Tigers got in their own way once again, dropping the Border War at Taylor Stadium on Tuesday after going ahead 5-3 heading into the back half of the game.
After posting five runs in three innings, the Tigers allowed three in the final four frames to let the rivals to the west come back and claim the win, including two runs that scored in the eighth inning after the Tigers walked the bases loaded.
The first run scored on a sacrifice fly and the second on a fantastic diving stop up the middle that caused a lack of awareness of a runner charging home to take the lead.
“We get a ground ball, … Keegan (Knutson) dives for the ball, assumes the runner is not going to advance and he does,” Jackson said. “That’s a mistake on our part, we always talk about next play. You may make a diving play, you may make a bang-bang play at a base, but if there’s runners on, go right to the next play.”
The loss marked the Tigers’ 12th in a row as the team sank to 13-35 with an 0-24 record in SEC play and only six games left to play, all against conference foes.
But Jackson said being able to reinforce that the team is getting close and now is in control enough to beat itself has helped keep the clubhouse from spiraling down the stretch.
“The human element of it is, ‘Oh sh–, here we go again,’ right?” Jackson said. “That potential is going to happen, but we’ve just got to keep, keep working with them and again, let’s control what we can control.”
The Tigers have a lot to look back on that they could have controlled better Tuesday.
Missouri put a runner on third with less than two outs in the first and seventh, plus got a runner to third in the second inning with two outs, but was unable to score a run in any of those opportunities.
“We’ll go back and watch some swings and see how big they were at times when they didn’t need to be,” Jackson said. “And you’ve got runners at third base with less than two outs and the infield’s back, man, hey, take the run. Just shorten up and put the ball in play. It’s little things like that.”
But with multiple freshmen in the everyday lineup needing to be relied on to succeed as well as multiple more sophomores, the Tigers are an exceedingly young team that has never learned how to be successful in the SEC. Which means Jackson and his staff are left trying to teach it all in the interim, waiting for the success to show up in a game.
“We’ve just got to grow up as a baseball team,” Jackson said. “We just, we made too many mistakes and didn’t take advantage of opportunities that were there in front of us and we just got to keep educating our guys on how to play the game.”
Stay up to date on all the Mizzou news with your premium subscription.
Talk about this story in the story thread and discuss so much more in The Tiger Walk.
Make sure you're caught up on all the Tiger news and headlines.
