Despite one of the worst seasons in program history, Mizzou still had something to play for entering its last series of the season. With a 14-34 record overall and 7-20 in the SEC, qualifying for the SEC Tournament was still in play for the Tigers. Thursday night’s 15-6 blowout loss to Auburn put a an already difficult task on the brink of impossible.
Jacob Kush started his second game of the season and put together a solid start against a great offense. Auburn, a team that ranks in the top 40 in the country in both hits and runs, is expected to score. It was imperative that Mizzou could match Auburn’s offensive production to have any chance, and it failed to do so in game one of the series.
In the top of the 2nd, Auburn scored two runs off of a Judd Ward sac fly and a Ryan Bliss RBI double. Bliss went 4-for-6 with 2 doubles and 5 RBIs in the game. The only other damage against Kush was a Rankin Woley solo home run in the top of the third and an RBI double by Woley in the top of the fifth. Woley went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs on the night.
Kush’s game ended after five innings allowing four runs, six hits, one walk and eight strikeouts on 106 pitches. Kush tied a season high by throwing 5 innings and set a season high with 8 strikeouts.
“I thought he was solid,” manager Steve Bieser said. “Getting the eight strikeouts really cost him a lot of pitches where he was up over 100 pitches through five innings but he pitched good enough to keep us in the game.”
It was a 4-0 game when Kush (2-3) exited, but it quickly got out of hand thereafter. Lukas Veinbergs entered the top of the sixth inning looking to keep the game in reach. Veinbergs ended up throwing 23 pitches and surrendering three hits, four runs (three earned), one walk and a wild pitch. The 4-0 deficit was enough to come back from, but 8-0 was insurmountable.
Luke Mann finally put Mizzou on the board with a two-run-homer (his third consecutive game with a home run) in the bottom of the seventh, making it a 9-2 game. Both runs were unearned for Auburn starter Jack Owen (2-4), who finished the game allowing just four hits and one walk while striking out seven in 6.2 innings. Owen gave Mizzou fits all night long, retiring 20 of his 25 batters faced.
“Jack’s gotten better each week and tonight it looked like he was really managing the edges of the strike zone,” Bieser said. “We just couldn’t get many good swings off of him.”
Mizzou scored four more runs in the game, but it still ended in a 15-6 defeat in a loss that stung as big as any this season given the implications. It felt like two losses since Texas A&M defeated LSU 2-1 in the opener of a three-game series. Texas A&M and Auburn (9-19 in SEC play) are both two games ahead of Mizzou with two games left. A loss in one of its two remaining games knocks Mizzou out of the SEC Tournament. Not only does Missouri need to win its final two, but it would need the Aggies to lose two more against LSU to get the 12th seed.
“We’ve been in this situation before at A&M,” Bieser said. “We got blown out night one and bounced back to win the series, but it all lies on tomorrow’s game. We’ve got to regroup, not dwell on tonight’s game, and I want to see us come out with more fire tomorrow.”
If the Tigers (14-35, 7-21 SEC) miss out on the SEC Tournament, it would be the first time since 2014 when they finished 6-24 in conference play under Tim Jamieson.
