On a windy Friday night, the Missouri Tigers lost their weekend series opener versus the Evansville Purple Aces. Mizzou’s tough start to the season has continued even after returning home to Taylor Stadium as this was only Evansville’s second win of the season.
Both teams traded home runs in the first inning, courtesy of Cal McGinnis for the visitors and Mateo Serna for the Tigers. The opposite of how the remaining runs would come from.
In the bottom of the fourth despite trailing 3-1, Mizzou played small ball with the bottom of their lineup, using three bunts to rally for a four-run fourth to give the Tigers a 5-3 lead. With Mizzou ace Ian Lohse going on the mound and giving five strong innings, it felt like it might be enough for a Tigers win.
The seventh inning is where the wheels fell off for Mizzou. Evansville got a lot of soft contact but the balls were choppers making them difficult plays if any play at all for the Tiger defense. These choppers led to the Purple Aces rallying for three runs to give themselves a 6-5 lead. In his postgame press conference, Mizzou Coach Kerrick Jackson repeated himself multiple times that he’d never seen balls in his time bounce like that against them.
The Tigers tried to mount a rally as both teams scored one in the eighth and Mizzou even got a man on in the ninth but were unable to pull out the victory.
Evansville pitcher Kenton Deverman deserves a tip of the cap as, despite some struggles, he gutted through seven innings not allowing a single run in his final three frames. Deverman pitching this deep allows Evansville to save their bullpen for the remainder of the series as they only used one other pitcher, Kellen Roberts who picked up the save.
It was a tough loss for the Tigers, but Jackson pointed at his relievers postgame. “James Vaughn getting a quick inning then just unlucky bounces, Nic Smith coming into a bases-loaded jam and minimize damage, Ben Smith executed well.” The Tigers hope these positives can be built on to help them turn around and win this weekend’s set.
Mizzou continues this Evansville series with a doubleheader Saturday with game one starting at 1 p.m. from Taylor Stadium.