A sentence few thought would become reality: Missouri baseball won a series against the big, bad Tennessee Volunteers. Not only that, the Tigers completely dominated the first two games.
Missouri started the scoring early. Luke Mann led off the first inning with a pop-up that went about 200 feet in the air over the head of Tennessee shortstop Maui Ahuna. Unfortunately for Ahuna, the sun was shining bright on Saturday, which caused the shortstop to hit a quasi-Nae Nae and lose the ball, which eventually fell harmlessly in shallow left field. By the time Ahuna fielded the ball, Mann was already on second. A few moments later, Ross Lovich drove in Mann with an RBI single.
A few moments after that, Dalton Bargo hammered a two-strike fastball over the pine trees in right center field to give Missouri a 3-0 lead.
The Tiger lead stayed at three until the bottom of the third. Mann drew a walk, then Lovich hit a double into the gap that put him and Mann into scoring position with no outs. Trevor Austin then hit a bloop single into center field that easily scored Mann to make it 4-0 Missouri.
Then, a metaphorical splash of chaos was dropped onto the field. UT pitcher Chase Burns made a pickoff attempt to first, but was called for a balk, scoring Lovich from third. UT manager Tony Vitello strongly disagreed with the call and stormed out of the dugout in immense frustration. Home plate umpire John Brammer wasted no time ejecting Vitello.
Tennessee finally got on the board in the top of the fourth courtesy of an RBI single from Ahuna. However, Dylan Leach wasted no time responding in the bottom half of the inning, as he sent the first pitch of the inning well over the left field wall to make it 6-1 Missouri.
Missouri tacked on another with an RBI single by Austin. UT left fielder Griffin Merritt put one over the fence to cut the Tiger lead to five, and in the bottom of the seventh, Zane Benton hit a two-run homer to cut the Tiger lead to four. However, that was the last of the scoring for the game, and Zach Franklin sealed the deal in the bottom of the seventh for Missouri’s 15th win of the season. The triumph clinched the Tigers’ first series victory over Tennessee since May 2019, which was also the last time Missouri beat Tennessee at all.
Lohse pitched two shutout innings, including four strikeouts. Zach Franklin registered six strikeouts of his own on 98 pitches. Lovich, Bargo and Austin each had multiple hits. It was an all-around smackdown of an elite college baseball team.
The Volunteers were dominated like this in consecutive games for the first time in a while, as they lost Friday’s series-opener 9-1. Tennessee hadn’t been outscored by at least a combined 11 runs in back-to-back games since they were outscored 26-12 by Arkansas in April 2019.
The Tigers will take on Tennessee once again right after this game as a part of Sunday’s double-header. After that, they’ll travel to Kansas City for their next game against Kansas at Kauffman Stadium on Wednesday night. Tennessee will head back home to battle Western Carolina on Tuesday evening.