Friday night’s 10-inning slugfest between Missouri and LSU felt like the perfect example of MU’s time in the SEC.
The Tigers played well. They were competitive, scrappy and hung with the conference’s elite. But it wasn’t enough: LSU beat Missouri 12-11 in extras on Friday night at Taylor Stadium.
LSU pushed across the deciding run in the top of the 10th inning on a fielder’s choice, and Missouri couldn’t answer the purple and gold a third time. The Tigers fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, then led 6-3 by the end of the frame. LSU plated eight unanswered runs across the third and fourth, but Missouri tied the ballgame 11-11 by the end of the sixth.
But all it took for the visitors from Baton Rouge to leave for the night with a win was a pair of singles and a well-placed ground ball. With one away and runners at first and third, the speedy Antoine Duplantis grounded one fairly softly toward third base. A charging Austin James, aware of Duplantis’ speed, knew he had no chance at the double play and fired home. His throw was too late as LSU shortstop Josh Smith dived headfirst across home plate, beating the throw and the home Tigers in one motion. Missouri went down meekly in the bottom of the 10th against LSU closer Devin Fontenot, losing the contest 12-11.
Fontenot’s quick inning put an end to a three-hour, 40-minute contest that felt longer, thanks to a 51-minute first inning featuring nine total runs. Missouri’s Josh Holt Jr. missed two straight balls in left, an error and a double that gave LSU two runs. But LSU starter Zack Hess left with an injury before even recording an out, and the Tigers jumped on Ma’Khail Hilliard. A pair of two-run singles and two wild pitches got Missouri six runs and staked the Tigers to a 6-3 lead.
Jacob Cantleberry, though, was erratic at best in his start for Missouri, giving up all 11 runs LSU managed in the game’s first nine innings. Eight of the runs — all of LSU’s tallies in the third and fourth innings — were earned.
And the way Cantleberry pitched, they well and truly were earned. He allowed three straight run-scoring hits in the third: Daniel Cabrera’s infield single, Brandt Broussard’s two-run double to left and Cade Beloso’s frozen-rope double to right for two more runs. Cantleberry began the fourth with a hit batsman, a two-run homer that carried out to right, and another hit batsman for good measure.
“He wasn’t throwing the ball well,” Missouri head coach Steve Bieser said. “He just didn’t have it for whatever reason tonight."
So Bieser made the move to the bullpen. Had Missouri won the game, the move just might have been the game-winning one. Bieser went to righty Konnor Ash, who looked dominant in relief.
Ash threw five scoreless innings out of the bullpen, allowing just two hits and two walks and keeping LSU scoreless through the eighth.
“His stuff is just really good whenever he’s on,” Bieser said. “He’s hard to hit. His velocity’s good, his breaking ball is tight and has late break to it."
And while Ash was shutting down the visiting Tigers, Missouri, down 11-6 when Ash entered the ballgame, mounted a comeback. Mizzou got a pair of runs in the fifth when Chad McDaniel scored on a wild pitch, then Tony Ortiz laid down a squeeze bunt to score Thomas Broyles. McDaniel came up huge for Missouri to tie it in the sixth, taking Trent Vietmeier deep to right for a game-tying three-run homer.
“It felt really good to get one out of the yard for once,” McDaniel said. "I thought it was going to change the game right there.”
But when Jordan Gubelman let LSU break the tie in the 10th, McDaniel’s heroics went unnoticed. Down a run, No. 7, No. 8 and No. 9 hitters in the Tigers’ lineup couldn’t manage a ball out of the infield against Fontenot in the 10th, and LSU escaped with the series opener in a tough one for the home team.
Missouri and LSU square off again at 5 p.m. Saturday as the home team looks to build its NCAA Tournament résumé. But this time, the Tigers will need a win.
“We have to move past the moral victories,” Bieser said. “We can’t say, ‘Hey, play it close!’ That’s not good enough. We have to find ways to win games like this. In conference play, we can’t let it slip away like this.”
