The Mizzou baseball team fell to Kansas, 7-1, Wednesday night (April 6) at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. The loss drops the Tigers to 13-16 on the season and the game did not count towards the team’s Big 12 records. The Kansas pitchers kept the Tigers in check all evening as they allowed just one Tiger hit. KU scored seven runs in the first three innings as well, putting the game out of reach for the Tigers.
Kansas’ Thomas Taylor got the win after throwing six innings of one-hit ball, allowing just one earned run and striking out a career-best nine. At one point, he had struck out five straight Tiger batters. Freshman Myles Smith, who made his first career start in the game, was tagged with the loss after giving up four runs in 1.1 innings pitched.
Mizzou threatened in the first inning after a lead-off single by Blake Brown. He stole second and was advanced to third on a sacrifice walk, but a pair of strikeouts ended the scoring threat for Mizzou. After allowing a run on an RBI double in the bottom of the first, Mizzou used small ball to even the score in the second. Sophomore Eric Garcia walked and stole a pair of bases to wind up on third with one out. Catcher Ben Turner then hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Garcia and even the score at 1-1. At that point of the game Mizzou had three steals, moving its season total to 60, which is a Big 12-best this season.
But things went south from there as KU put together three runs in both the second and third innings to take a 7-1 lead. Four of those runs were charged to freshman starter Myles Smith, who threw 1.1 innings in his first career start. He struck out two and walked two more while scattering two hits in the outing. The other three runs in that span were charged to Jeff Emens, who came into the game with a team-leading 2.13 ERA.
Junior reliever Dusty Ross came on in the third and pitched very well for the Tigers. In fact, the righty went 3.0 innings and did not allow a hit and 25 of his 32 pitches were strikes. He also struck out a career-best five in the game including striking out the side in the fifth.
But Mizzou’s offense was unable to get anything going all night and it couldn’t recover from Kansas’ seven runs over the first three innings. Eric Anderson made his third appearance on the mound since season-ending shoulder surgery last season. He went 2.0 innings and allowed just one hit and struck out one in a promising outing for the sophomore.
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