Baseball tires out Bears’ pitcher
The game was called after the sixth inning because of rain.
Published April 11, 2008
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The Tigers traveled to Hammons Field in Springfield, Mo., to play the Missouri State Bears on Wednesday. Hammons Field is home to the Springfield Cardinals minor league baseball team.
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Missouri junior pitcher Scooter Hicks delivers to a Missouri STate batter. Hick collected the win for the game, improving his record to 2-1.
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Missouri freshman outfielder Jonah Schmidt celebrates with teammates near home plate after hitting his first career home run as a Tiger.
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Missouri second baseman Greg Folgia slides back to second base after a pickoff attempt in the sixth inning. Folgia reached third base on the play.
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Missouri State junior infielder Chris Playter bats in the sixth inning as rain continued to pour down in Springfield, Mo.
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In the top of the seventh inning, after the Tigers loaded the bases with no outs, umpires called the grounds crew to cover the field.
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Missouri State players pull a tarp over the infield of Hammons Field.
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After a 15-minute rain delay in the game, a lone fan walks to the exits.
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Players exit the field after the game was canceled due to rain. Because the game was official, Missouri won 8-4, the score at the time the delay was enacted.
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Missouri senior outfielder Jacob Priday returns to the MU dugout following his three-run homer in the sixth inning that gave the Tigers an 8-3 lead.
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Missouri freshman infielder Andrew Thigpen commits an error, allowing Missouri State senior outfielder Ben Woodbury to reach second base.
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Missouri sophomore infielder Greg Folgia bats in the second inning. Folgia reached base on a walk.
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Missouri State junior third baseman Brayden Drake picks up one of his two hits for the game. Drake also had an RBI and a run scored.
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Missouri second baseman Greg Folgia congratulates sophomore catcher Trevor Coleman as he returns to the dugout after scoring a run in the fourth inning.
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Freshman outfielder Jonah Schmidt waits in the on deck circle as heavy rain falls during Wednesday’s game against Missouri State at Hammons Field in Springfield, Mo. Schmidt hit a home run, had three hits and three RBIs in the Tigers’ 8-4 rain-shortened win against the Bears.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Sometimes a baseball player has only a small window to make a big impression. No. 8 Missouri’s trip to Missouri State was a lull between critical conference series’ against Oklahoma State and Texas. But with starting third baseman Kyle Mach away from the team due a death in the family, it presented a chance for freshman Jonah Schmidt to show how he could contribute to the Tigers, and he didn’t let the team down.
MU was trailing the Bears 2-0 with two runners on in the top of the fourth inning. Schmidt, making just his third start of the season, drove a 2-2 fastball from freshman Cody Aycock deep into left field for a double, scoring sophomore catcher Trevor Coleman. From then on, the MU bats, which had been moribund for the last two games, began to finally show spark.
“I was concerned with the slow start because it was typical of how we had been playing,” coach Tim Jamieson said. “But then we started to click.”
Starting with the first of Schmidt’s three RBI’s on a 3-for-4 day, the Tigers (23-8, 4-4 Big 12) scored eight runs in the final three innings of an 8-4 win that was called after six innings due to torrential rain and lightning.
“When Jonah had the nobody out, two strikes double to right it got everyone going,” senior designated hitter Jacob Priday said. “After that, it seemed like the bats finally came alive there in the last couple innings.”
And on a night when swirling winds in right and centerfield knocked down over a half-dozen fly balls, Priday and Schmidt were able to find the wind tunnel at Hammons Field and hit monstrous home runs to the train tracks nearly 100 feet behind the left field wall.
“The ball was carrying between the Dasani sign and the (left field) line,” Jamieson said. “And they both got it in between there, which was nice.”
Once the offensive floodgates opened, they overshadowed the first two disappointing innings of the game, in which MU left five runners on with nothing to show for it.
Yet sophomore Greg Folgia set the tone for MU by forcing Aycock of the Bears (19-11, 5-4 Missouri Valley) to throw eight pitches on the first at-bat of the game. And they made Aycock throw 52 pitches in the first two innings, tiring him out before he surrendered three runs in the third inning.
“Our approach is to see as many pitches as possible the first time through” the lineup, Schmidt said. “So we can tire them out and get to the bullpen.”
With the top of the Tigers’ rotation preparing for the Texas series and not even on the road trip, freshman Brad Buehler made the start for MU. He only threw two innings before being junior Scooter Hicks relieved him.
Hicks threw 2 and 2/3 innings and got the win, improving his record to 2-1.
Junior Rick Zagone, normally a starter, threw the last 1 and 1/3 innings for the Tigers and got his first save of the season.
That save was because of the steady rain that turned heavy in the top of the seventh inning.
MU had loaded the bases, but with lightning in the distance to the south, home plate umpire Scott Wyckoff halted play. The game was in a rain delay for about 15 minutes before finally being called off for good. Since more than five innings were played, the game will stand in the record books.
“I didn’t know if we were going to get the game in today,” Priday said. “We fought through the rain for a few innings, but it just got too bad.”
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