Missouri football has had “Something to Prove” for a couple of years and the Tigers’ athletic department has its “Will to Win.”
Now the Tiger baseball team has a motto of its own, “No opportunity wasted.”
The Tigers took to the practice field last week with jerseys reading “NOW” as the Tigers focus on rebuilding a program that has struggled in recent years.
“I feel like we have really, as a team, took that to heart,” Graduate pitcher Xavier Lovett said. “And that’s what we try to apply each and every day. And I can see it in every last one of our guys.”
The main opportunity for the Tigers this season will be the return of multiple injured pitchers with a lot of upside, but not a lot of experience.
And that group will be led by former Tiger head coach Tim Jamieson who returned to the program prior to the 2024 season as the pitching coach.
“Uncle J, that’s what I call him, Uncle J,” Lovett said. “Having him on this ship with us to be able to guide us … You know how baseball is very technology based and everything like that. You have Uncle J here, who really isn’t into all that. He’s down to the basic fundamentals of pitching and having that is much better, in my opinion than having all the technology things because it helps you stay grounded into understanding the game of baseball. It’s the same game we’ve been playing since we were younger.”
Lovett is now the elder statesman in a room that is looking for starters among a group that has 53 career starts with the Tigers, but made just 24 last season out of the Tigers’ 55 games.
Left handed senior Javyn Pimental leads the way with 18 career starts, 10 last year and eight in 2023, while left handed junior Daniel Wissler made seven starts last season.
Left handed junior Tony Neubeck made nine starts in 2022 and one in 2023, but missed last season with a medical redshirt, left handed graduate Ian Lohse made two starts last season and six in 2023 and left handed junior Nic Smith made three starts in 2023.
You might have noticed a dearth of right-handed options among the group with more than a few career starts.
Sophomore Josh McDevitt leads the right handers in experience with three starts last year, while senior right hander Kaden Jacobi made one last season. Add on one 2023 start for junior righty Brock Lucas and a 2020 start for right-handed graduate Ben Pederson and that makes up the whole of the Tigers’ starting experience.
So the opportunity the Tigers are focused on not wasting this year is the chance to get numerous arms work to see who fits best in what roles.
“We have a number of guys that are returners that have done well,” Missouri coach Kerrick Jackson said. “Brock Lucas, Ian Lohse, (Daniel) Wissler those guys have been pretty solid. Young man, Kadden Drew who redshirted for us last year, he’s got a chance to be in the mix there as well. So still kind of trying to figure that out. … We’ve got some of those young arms that have really high ceilings, but just don’t have the experience. So we’re going to wait and see what happens with them and kind of ease them into it.”
Add in highly-touted arms the Tigers are yet to get see much of on the field in left handed redshirt freshman Wil Libbert and right handed sophomore Sam Horn and the Tigers have a lot of options to take a look at.
“Sam, that one’s kind of up in the air just with regards to the football aspect of it,” Jackson said. “We want to make sure that we don’t run into some of the things that happened previously, of trying to do too much on both sides of the ball, if you will. So his throwing rehab and his progression coming back has gone tremendously well, but spring football is coming. He’s going to leave us to go to spring football, and so once he comes back from spring football, we’ll kind of have to take our time with him and build him up to make sure we don’t send him out there and put him at risk for injury.
“When you talk about Libbert, it’s been outstanding. He started pitching last summer, actively in one of the summer leagues here locally, did a really good job this summer. Did really well for us this fall, knock on wood, hasn’t had any type of setbacks. Velocity is good.”
Jackson said he had Libbert focusing during games last season so he could take advantage of the learning opportunities that come just from being with the team and not needing to play.
Jackson said Libbert would go through scouting reports with him, take notes on hitters, watch how games progress and put himself in situations on the mound to think through what his strategy would be.
“He took that to heart,” Jackson said. “We met several times on scouting reports that he had done based on things that he had seen in games. So I think that’s going to help him with his transition when he gets out there.”
The Tiger pitchers, like Libbert throughout last seasoan, are making sure they don’t waste a single opportunity this year. And there’s some big opportunities available as the Tigers have openings throughout the starting rotation as the season begins.
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