The Redhawks from Southeast Missouri State heated up as the temperatures cooled down Tuesday night.
Mizzou baseball dropped its home opener 8-3 in eight innings to the Redhawks as pitching blunders persisted for Tigers. Mizzou rotated through eight pitchers during the game, but none of the Tigers were able to get comfortable on the mound.
Daniel Wissler got the nod for the Tigers. Wissler had a 4.15 ERA through 4.1 innings prior to the start. Pitching became an issue early for the Tigers as Chance Restich homered off the first pitch of the second inning to put the Redhawks ahead 1-0.
Wissler exited after finishing the second inning, and Victor Quinn took over for the Tigers.
“I thought he [Wissler] pitched both sides of the plate. [The] changeup is his pitch, he threw it well,” said Mizzou manager Kerrick Jackson.
Quinn saw five batters in the third inning only getting two outs. In order his five batters faced were a walk, a hit-by-pitch, a hit-by-pitch, double play, and finally a hit-by-pitch.
Jackson replaced Quinn with Charlie Miller, who got the final out of the third.
Miller sat down the Redhawks in order in the fourth inning, with two strikeouts and a groundout.
Kaden Peer had a two-out double in the fourth which brought some spark to the Mizzou dugout, however, Drew Culbertson struck out to end the inning. SEMO led 2-0 after four innings.
A barrage of runs came in the fifth for SEMO as Miles Garrett took the mound for the Tigers.
Garrett walked the first four batters and swiftly left the game as Nic Smith entered. Smith hit his first batter and gave up SEMO’s first grand slam of the season to Bryce Cannon putting the Redhawks up 8-0.
Cannon’s grand slam was his third home run of the season.
Mizzou finally put itself on the board in the fourth with a Brock Daniels ground out that scored Isaiah Frost.
The Redhawks gifted another run to Mizzou as SEMO shortstop Ben Palmer committed a throwing error on a Trevor Austin grounder that allowed Jedier Hernande to score. Mizzou was still looking up a mountain after the fifth, trailing 8-2.
Kaden Jacobi stepped onto the mound in the seventh inning as Mizzou’s seventh pitcher.Jacobi allowed the bases loaded then got himself out of the jam without allowing runs.
With one out in the bottom of the seventh, leadoff hitter Tucker Moore blasted one up into the wind in right that cleared the wall to cut the lead to 8-3.
“His [Moore’s] stock is on the rise. Tucker Moore is going to be a really, really good player,” said Jackson.
After one pitch in the bottom of the eighth, the game entered a lightning delay around 7:35.
At 8:27 p.m., the umpires ended the game due to lightning.
“We had scripted it out, planning on Wissler going two, and then an inning a piece for all those guys,” said Jackson.
SEMO moved to 3-6 on the season with a home weekend series with Toledo starting Friday.
Mizzou welcomes the Norse from Northern Kentucky for a weekend series starting Friday.
“They’re [Northern Kentucky] going to come in here and be ready to get after it. We have the target on our back, we’re the SEC team,” said Jackson.