Missouri's route to SEC Baseball Tournament toughens with loss to South Carolina

The home stretch got a little tougher for the Tigers.

Missouri baseball dropped the opening game of its home series against South Carolina on Friday evening in Columbia, Missouri, as the Tigers fell 10-2 and watched their path to the SEC Baseball Tournament get a game more difficult.

Mizzou (20-27, 6-16 SEC) entered the game in 13th place in the league, one spot, and a single game, behind behind both LSU and Ole Miss in the race for the 12th and final spot in the SEC Baseball Tournament. Missouri must surpass one of those two teams to book its postseason spot in Hoover, Alabama.

The Tigers’ first chance came crashing down behind USC catcher Cole Messina’s five-RBI outing and a 3-for-5, three-RBI day from Gamecocks shortstop Talmadge LeCroy.

LeCroy hit a run-scoring single off both MU starter Logan Lunceford and reliever Jacob Peaden, coming in the second and sixth innings, respectively. He doubled to lead off the eighth, and made it home on leadoff hitter Austin Brinling’s single to put the Gamecocks up 6-2.

Then the floodgates opened.

Messina drilled a three-run home run over the center-field wall, making it a five-run eighth inning after an MU error scored South Carolina (31-14, 12-10) second baseman Parker Noland.

Peaden, who relieved Lunceford on the mound to open the sixth, gave up five hits in his three innings of work, but just one of the six runs South Carolina scored while he was in the game was earned.

"The eighth inning ended up being a — I don't want to say a microcosm, because it was a big eighth inning — but if you look at the totality of the game, it unfortunately kind of led up to that. That was the last domino to fall: bad defense," Missouri coach Kerrick Jackson said postgame. "We hadn't had good approaches at the plate. We weren't executing pitches. We missed out on opportunities to score runs with runners in scoring position. So the only thing that would have made it a trifecta was bad defense and then all of a sudden, here comes bad defense."

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Messina scored the go-ahead runs for South Carolina in the top of the fifth, driving a two-run double down the left-field line to break a 2-all tie. Those runs essentially marked the end of the day for Missouri’s starter, who was credited with the loss.

Lunceford was tagged for four runs on four hits, while striking out six, walking three and hitting two USC batters.

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Up to that point, Missouri had kept it competitive behind a pair of solo shots.

Missouri designated hitter Mateo Serna put the Tigers on the scoreboard, leading off the second inning with a line-drive home run over the left field wall.

Then, déjá vu.

Jackson Lovich, facing a 3-2 pitch himself, hit a no-doubter sailing over the USC left fielder’s head that couldn’t have landed more than 10 feet from the Serna strike’s resting place.

But that was all MU managed, as the home team’s bats went cold and chance after mid-game chance went begging.

Missouri leadoff hitter Brock Daniels reached third base without a ball ever touching a Tiger bat in the fifth — walk; steal; wild pitch — but he stayed there, as Danny Corona and Jedier Hernandez struck out in succession to end the inning.

In the sixth, MU loaded the corners with Matt Garcia and Lovich on third and first, but Drew Culbertson struck out as Lovich stole second, before Justin Colon grounded out to the shortstop as another opportunity passed MU by. Hernandez worked a long plate appearance with Daniels on second in the seventh, but got caught looking on pitch No. 9 to let another chance pass.

"I think having a plan and sticking to your plan is the key," Jackson said on MU's plate discipline. "And then when you put the runners on base and in scoring position, I think there now becomes a heightened sense of anxiety to get it done when the reality of the situation is the bat shouldn't be any different."

At press time, Ole Miss had defeated Auburn on the road and LSU was leading Texas A&M at home in the bottom of the eighth. If the LSU lead holds, Missouri would fall two games out of an SEC Tournament spot.

The Tigers have two chances to salvage something from their series with South Carolina, starting with Game 2 at 3 p.m. Saturday at Taylor Stadium. Missouri has eight games total remaining in the regular season. After this weekend, Mizzou has a home series against last-place Auburn and a road series against Mississippi State left on its schedule.

Somewhere in that run, MU has to find some wins.

But Jackson was the first to lament the Tigers' inconsistency in his first season at the helm.

"All the scenarios that you see in a game — we create a practice environment that simulates all those things," Jackson said. ... "All we can continue to do is continue to put them in those situations and hope that at some point it clicks, and then probably the most frustrating part is we've done it at times, and then we don't do it. I mean, we've looked like completely two different teams throughout the course of the year.

"I'd almost rather it just be sh***y the whole time than to have this up and down and back and forth, right? Just stay on (the bad) side of it, and then it is what it is. But when you go (up and down), it's tough, because I don't know what to do. Like, I literally don't know what to do, but I gotta keep trying and keep working to try and figure it out."

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Missouri's route to SEC Tournament toughens after South Carolina loss