Missouri baseball coach Steve Bieser has made his plan for midweek games clear: throw Tyler LaPlante for three innings and let the bulk of the bullpen ride.
A week ago in a 12-1 win over SIU-Edwardsville, this worked to perfection. LaPlante struck out six over three scoreless frames. Afterwards, the Tiger bullpen allowed just a run over the next six innings.
The plan worked again on Tuesday night in an 8-6 victory against Missouri State...sort of. Missouri State is not SIU-Edwardsville. Missouri State is ranked No. 19, holds a 22-8 record and boasts four hitters with a slugging percentage north of .400. A rivalry game against a perennially competitive ball club may not have been the ideal time to focus bullpen reserves.
However, Bieser remained steadfast. LaPlante struck out four and allowed just a run in three innings, and then came the relievers. But instead of cruising to the end of the game like a week ago, they allowed the Bears back in it, inning-by-inning.
Luke Anderson allowed an RBI single in the fourth. Giovanni Lopez allowed two runs on a single in the fifth. The next frame, it was Ryan Rickett who gave up the damage, surrendering two singles and two more runs in the 6th.
After jumping ahead 4-0, Missouri had given Missouri State a 6-5 lead, and Bieser’s implementation of his pitching staff may have looked questionable.
But then the offense picked up the pitchers. The Tigers scored three in the first inning for the first time in a month earlier in the game on two-out RBI hits by Zach Hanna and Alex Samples, and they took the lead right back in similar fashion in the 7th.
With two outs, Hanna was hit by a pitch. Samples then singled. Chad McDaniel dumped a double to left field that rolled through the left fielder’s legs, which allowed Hanna and Samples to score. For the final blow, pinch-hitter Cade Bormet shot a double to right, scoring McDaniel.
This time, the lead was for good. In a night full of bullpen woes, Jordan Gubelman was the outlier. After Missouri surrendered it’s lead in the sixth, the junior right-hander entered and shoved. He struck out four Bears over 3.1 innings, including the ninth, where he secured his first save as a Tiger. Missouri took the 8-6 win, just its second over the Bears in the last eight matchups.
Gubelman has proved to be one of Missouri’s better bullpen pieces with a 0.56 ERA in 16.1 innings. The Tigers needed him on Tuesday.
Missouri snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s the sixth time the Tigers have defeated a ranked opponent in 2018, and this one looks especially bright after dropping a series last weekend to Alabama.
Next comes MU’s likely toughest test of the year when it will square off against No. 1 Florida in Gainesville this weekend.
