So begins the most difficult grind in all of American amateur sports. 10 weeks, 30 games against the conference in the nation. As good as the SEC has been in football, it's an even stronger baseball conference. I figure we go into every football season with at least two guaranteed wins in the league... That's 25% of the conference slate. Like last fall, we could have beaten Vanderbilt 100 times in a row. The same could be said for Kentucky the fall before. That's just not the case with SEC baseball, where the bottom team in the conference play with (and often beat) the best team in the league. Vanderbilt in 2013 went 26-3 in the SEC... I never thought that I'd see a record like that... We finished in last place in the league. Still, we split a double header with Vanderbilt in Athens and had a great chance to win the rubber game Sunday. Examples like that show up every season. I have a great deal of respect for the coaches and players who go through this gauntlet.
With that said, when Missouri joined the SEC, I figured them to be the closest thing to a "tomato can" that we would have in league play. Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. Missouri took a series from us here in Athens in 2013. We took the series from them last year in Columbia, though Friday's night game went 13 innings and was one that I'm sure Missouri thought they should have won. Over the last two years, it's been very even with these guys. They've thrown a dominant pitcher at us on Friday night each of the last two years and all three of their wins against us felt like they were mainly earned by one guy (a different player each time). This isn't the best team that we'll play in the conference this year, but if you are expecting an easy way of things, you haven't been paying attention the last two seasons.
Missouri has been road warriors this year, as is usually the case with them in the early going. They've had to move some series around and had to cancel some midweek games with the weather. They're rolling into Athens at 12-4, though they've only played 5 home games and 2 true road games.
They opened their season in Cary North Carolina at the Team USA baseball complex. There, they swept Iona in a four game set that included 2 one run wins. The next weekend they traveled to Corpus Christi Texas. They split a pair of games with Texas A&M Corpus Christi and also took games from Sam Houston State and Purdue. They had to move their series with Illinois Chicago to Milligan Tennessee where they swept UIC (with 2 more one run wins). They finally got to play some home games last weekend, but it didn't go well as Milwaukee went to Columbia and actually swept Missouri. The Tigers rebounded with a pair of midweek wins over Truman State and SIU-Edwardsville.
Tomorrow night, we're going to see former UGA signee and Johns Creek native Reggie McClain. This guy has to the be the biggest surprise of any SEC pitcher this season. The lanky right hander leads the SEC (and probably the nation) in innings pitched with 29 1/3 through 4 starts. He's posted a 1.84 ERA, 2-1 record, and has a 29/5 K/BB. He's only given up 4 extra base hits on the season and the opposition is hitting .194 against him. I don't remember much of what McClain had watching him pitch here in fall 2011 and fall 2012. I remember thinking he was pretty far behind some of the other freshmen in Pete Nagel, Jarrett Brown, and Luke Crumley from that class. I think you can look for a low 90s fastball from him and I'd imagine that his slider and/ or curve have gotten a lot better. This is a guy who was told a few years ago that he wasn't good enough to pitch here. And that was probably justified at the time. You'd better believe that this guy is going to come in here with a chip on his shoulder. I thought it would have been really neat if David Sosebee had gotten the nod Friday night for us. At any rate, expect to get Reggie McClain's A-game.
On Saturday, we're going to see Tanner Houck, a tall righty from Collinsville Illinois. Houck has put up respectable numbers on the year. He's made 4 starts and posted a 3-1 record with a 3.08 ERA. He's pitched 26 1/3 innings, which is impressive for a freshman at this stage. He has a very impressive 22/2 K/BB and the opposition is hitting .237 against him. This guy was a 12th round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays back in June, so it's safe to assume that he turned down quite a bit of money to go to Missouri. He'll throw a low-mid 90s fastball, throws his change in the mid 80s, and has what looks like a slow, sweeping curveball. I'd imagine it's a safe bet that he's going to be a Friday night guy his last two seasons in Columbia.
Sunday, we'll face off with junior righty Peter Fairbanks. The 6'6, 225 lber hails from St. Louis Missouri. Fairbanks has also put up good numbers on the season and enters with a 1-2 record and 1.99 ERA. In 22 2/3 innings pitched, he has a 22/3 K/BB. I couldn't find a great deal on Fairbanks, but I don't think that he throws as hard as his size would suggest and I imagine that we'll see plenty of change ups from him.
The Missouri pitching staff overall is very strong, allowing a staff WHIP of 1.08 and opposing hitters to a .196 average. Their starters are obviously leading the way and have thrown enough innings that they haven't had to go too deep into their bullpen. How deep is it? I can't tell you, but if we can make their bullpen throw 13 innings or so this weekend, we'll at least get them out of their element a bit.
The Missouri offense hasn't really come around so far this year. Their collective slash line of .245/.332/.364 all fall into last place among SEC teams. Interestingly, they have hit more HRs than 4 other SEC teams. Only Vanderbilt and LSU have logged more stolen bases on the year than has Missouri, who has swiped 32... (LSU has attempted the same number - 41 and Vanderbilt has attempted 45)
We'll see freshman switch hitter Brett Bond hitting in the middle of the Tiger order this weekend. He should catch and DH. He's their leading hitter at .333/.400/.458. He has 2 HRs. He's only K'd 8 times in 48 ABs and has drawn 5 walks on the season. Pretty impressive stuff for a freshman.
John Lester is off to something of a slow start for Missouri with a .241/.348/.414. He does have 2 HRs and 17 RBI (had a 5 RBI game against Truman State). Lester is from Columbus GA and was high school teammate of JT Phillips and Kyle Carter. Lester played SS against us last year, but it looks like he'll be playing 3B and hitting cleanup this weekend.
We'll probably see Logan Pearson in the bottom 3rd this weekend, but he's been swinging better and may be moving up. He's played in 11 of their 16 games this year and has a .250/.314/.313 line with 1 HR and 10 RBI. Pearson is a left handed hitter. He had probably the most selfish AB that I saw all of last year in that Friday night marathon. Missouri had the bases loaded with 1 out in the 12th. Pearson came up to hit and took three GIANT swings... the last of which was so long and out of control that the bat came flying out of his hands and lodged in the net about 15 feet over our on-deck circle. Pearson hails from Bentonville Arkansas.
Finally, their leadoff hitter is Brett Peel, who we can expect to see at 2nd base. Peel is a smallish guy who is hitting .305/.391/.404. He's K'd 11 times and drawn 9 walks and is also 12/14 in steals. That stolen base mark ties him for tops in the conference with Alex Bregman, though I'm sure Peel isn't nearly as cocky as Bregman. Getting Sosebee back on Sunday will be huge for handling their run game.
Missouri is bringing a team over here to beat us. They haven't played murder's row by any stretch this season, but they can pitch and some of their hitters do look to be heating up. We just haven't played very well our last two weekends and if we play to that level this weekend, we're going to drop this series. But I think we all know that we are capable of doing a lot better than we've done the last two weekends. This really is not a bad looking Missouri team on paper. I'm not expecting an easy series by any stretch, but I certainly think this is winnable for us. It's good to start the league grinder at home too, but playing away from home is certainly nothing new for these guys either.
With that said, when Missouri joined the SEC, I figured them to be the closest thing to a "tomato can" that we would have in league play. Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. Missouri took a series from us here in Athens in 2013. We took the series from them last year in Columbia, though Friday's night game went 13 innings and was one that I'm sure Missouri thought they should have won. Over the last two years, it's been very even with these guys. They've thrown a dominant pitcher at us on Friday night each of the last two years and all three of their wins against us felt like they were mainly earned by one guy (a different player each time). This isn't the best team that we'll play in the conference this year, but if you are expecting an easy way of things, you haven't been paying attention the last two seasons.
Missouri has been road warriors this year, as is usually the case with them in the early going. They've had to move some series around and had to cancel some midweek games with the weather. They're rolling into Athens at 12-4, though they've only played 5 home games and 2 true road games.
They opened their season in Cary North Carolina at the Team USA baseball complex. There, they swept Iona in a four game set that included 2 one run wins. The next weekend they traveled to Corpus Christi Texas. They split a pair of games with Texas A&M Corpus Christi and also took games from Sam Houston State and Purdue. They had to move their series with Illinois Chicago to Milligan Tennessee where they swept UIC (with 2 more one run wins). They finally got to play some home games last weekend, but it didn't go well as Milwaukee went to Columbia and actually swept Missouri. The Tigers rebounded with a pair of midweek wins over Truman State and SIU-Edwardsville.
Tomorrow night, we're going to see former UGA signee and Johns Creek native Reggie McClain. This guy has to the be the biggest surprise of any SEC pitcher this season. The lanky right hander leads the SEC (and probably the nation) in innings pitched with 29 1/3 through 4 starts. He's posted a 1.84 ERA, 2-1 record, and has a 29/5 K/BB. He's only given up 4 extra base hits on the season and the opposition is hitting .194 against him. I don't remember much of what McClain had watching him pitch here in fall 2011 and fall 2012. I remember thinking he was pretty far behind some of the other freshmen in Pete Nagel, Jarrett Brown, and Luke Crumley from that class. I think you can look for a low 90s fastball from him and I'd imagine that his slider and/ or curve have gotten a lot better. This is a guy who was told a few years ago that he wasn't good enough to pitch here. And that was probably justified at the time. You'd better believe that this guy is going to come in here with a chip on his shoulder. I thought it would have been really neat if David Sosebee had gotten the nod Friday night for us. At any rate, expect to get Reggie McClain's A-game.
On Saturday, we're going to see Tanner Houck, a tall righty from Collinsville Illinois. Houck has put up respectable numbers on the year. He's made 4 starts and posted a 3-1 record with a 3.08 ERA. He's pitched 26 1/3 innings, which is impressive for a freshman at this stage. He has a very impressive 22/2 K/BB and the opposition is hitting .237 against him. This guy was a 12th round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays back in June, so it's safe to assume that he turned down quite a bit of money to go to Missouri. He'll throw a low-mid 90s fastball, throws his change in the mid 80s, and has what looks like a slow, sweeping curveball. I'd imagine it's a safe bet that he's going to be a Friday night guy his last two seasons in Columbia.
Sunday, we'll face off with junior righty Peter Fairbanks. The 6'6, 225 lber hails from St. Louis Missouri. Fairbanks has also put up good numbers on the season and enters with a 1-2 record and 1.99 ERA. In 22 2/3 innings pitched, he has a 22/3 K/BB. I couldn't find a great deal on Fairbanks, but I don't think that he throws as hard as his size would suggest and I imagine that we'll see plenty of change ups from him.
The Missouri pitching staff overall is very strong, allowing a staff WHIP of 1.08 and opposing hitters to a .196 average. Their starters are obviously leading the way and have thrown enough innings that they haven't had to go too deep into their bullpen. How deep is it? I can't tell you, but if we can make their bullpen throw 13 innings or so this weekend, we'll at least get them out of their element a bit.
The Missouri offense hasn't really come around so far this year. Their collective slash line of .245/.332/.364 all fall into last place among SEC teams. Interestingly, they have hit more HRs than 4 other SEC teams. Only Vanderbilt and LSU have logged more stolen bases on the year than has Missouri, who has swiped 32... (LSU has attempted the same number - 41 and Vanderbilt has attempted 45)
We'll see freshman switch hitter Brett Bond hitting in the middle of the Tiger order this weekend. He should catch and DH. He's their leading hitter at .333/.400/.458. He has 2 HRs. He's only K'd 8 times in 48 ABs and has drawn 5 walks on the season. Pretty impressive stuff for a freshman.
John Lester is off to something of a slow start for Missouri with a .241/.348/.414. He does have 2 HRs and 17 RBI (had a 5 RBI game against Truman State). Lester is from Columbus GA and was high school teammate of JT Phillips and Kyle Carter. Lester played SS against us last year, but it looks like he'll be playing 3B and hitting cleanup this weekend.
We'll probably see Logan Pearson in the bottom 3rd this weekend, but he's been swinging better and may be moving up. He's played in 11 of their 16 games this year and has a .250/.314/.313 line with 1 HR and 10 RBI. Pearson is a left handed hitter. He had probably the most selfish AB that I saw all of last year in that Friday night marathon. Missouri had the bases loaded with 1 out in the 12th. Pearson came up to hit and took three GIANT swings... the last of which was so long and out of control that the bat came flying out of his hands and lodged in the net about 15 feet over our on-deck circle. Pearson hails from Bentonville Arkansas.
Finally, their leadoff hitter is Brett Peel, who we can expect to see at 2nd base. Peel is a smallish guy who is hitting .305/.391/.404. He's K'd 11 times and drawn 9 walks and is also 12/14 in steals. That stolen base mark ties him for tops in the conference with Alex Bregman, though I'm sure Peel isn't nearly as cocky as Bregman. Getting Sosebee back on Sunday will be huge for handling their run game.
Missouri is bringing a team over here to beat us. They haven't played murder's row by any stretch this season, but they can pitch and some of their hitters do look to be heating up. We just haven't played very well our last two weekends and if we play to that level this weekend, we're going to drop this series. But I think we all know that we are capable of doing a lot better than we've done the last two weekends. This really is not a bad looking Missouri team on paper. I'm not expecting an easy series by any stretch, but I certainly think this is winnable for us. It's good to start the league grinder at home too, but playing away from home is certainly nothing new for these guys either.
