Baseball spllits weekend games in St. Charles

MU played two Illinois teams in O’Fallon.

By Sam Wilson

Published April 25, 2008

O’FALLON, Mo. — Sunday didn’t go well for Ian Berger. After giving up seven runs in the team’s 22-4 loss at Oklahoma, the junior got even more disappointing news: He would be starting Wednesday’s game against the Southern Illinois Salukis.

“He actually told me right after the game on Sunday,” Berger said. “I was a little pissed off. It got me a little fired up when (pitching coach Tony) Vitello told me that.”

Berger had been a staple in the team’s weekend rotation, starting every week against a conference opponent. But after the outing at Oklahoma and a five-inning, seven-earned-run outing the Sunday before against Texas, Berger would have to make a midweek start in a nonconference game.

Berger pitched six innings Wednesday, giving up one earned run on four hits.

“It feels great,” he said. “I really needed this one. Because the last two outings I had, I really got hit hard and it was really frustrating for me. I’ve been trying to work hard and get back to where I was earlier in the year.”

The problem for Missouri was that it could only put up one run against six Saluki pitchers. Southern Illinois junior catcher Mark Kelly had an RBI single in the eighth inning that was the difference in a 2-1 Saluki victory.

“We had innings set up, we just didn’t finish them,” coach Tim Jamieson said.

The Tigers (29-11, 9-6 Big 12) stranded 11 runners on base in the loss, including a few instances where the team left the bases loaded.

Berger wasn’t the only pitcher to put in a good start in O’Fallon. Tuesday, Junior Rick Zagone got the start in an 8-6 win against Eastern Illinois. Zagone had 17 starts last season, but Tuesday’s was only his fourth of the 2008 season. He pitched seven innings and gave up five runs, three of them earned.

In the game Tuesday, the Tigers had a seven-run first inning. In the 17 innings since, the team has scored just two runs.

“I don’t know if you can really point your finger at one thing,” sophomore outfielder Aaron Senne said. “It’s just a variety of things. I don’t know if we’re being too patient at the plate or not patient enough.”

The two games, played at T.R. Hughes Ballpark, home of the independent Frontier League’s River City Rascals, drew crowds of 1,637 and 2,245, respectively. In both games, the team used wood bats instead of the usual metal ones. But Senne said that wasn’t the reason for the lack of hitting.

“I like hitting with wood,” he said. “It’s a little frustrating tonight, but that’s baseball.”

The Tigers have a three-game set this weekend at Texas A&M. Junior Aaron Crow and sophomore Kyle Gibson have been mainstays in the weekend rotation and are both expected to start a game.

But as of Wednesday night, Jamieson said he hadn’t decided if Berger will be the third starter or if he will go with Zagone, giving him his first conference start of the season.

“We’ll talk about it,” Jamieson said. “I think both of them pitched well as starters. And, we’ll make a decision on which guy is going to start on Sunday. Probably, at this point, we’ll be leaning towards Zagone since he’s had one more day’s rest.”