Alright, I'm not going to spend as much time on this as I normally would... I'm not a big fan of the Thursday - Saturday series...
Missouri has had an interesting season. They lost on Opening Night to Eastern Michigan down in Fort Myers Florida. I remember being very surprised at that result when I saw it on the scoreboard during our loss to College of Charleston, mainly because Missouri hadn't beaten a MAC team with Tanner Houck starting. The 245 people who paid to see were surprised too, I would imagine. But then, Missouri ran off 20 wins in a row. They didn't really play a murderer's row in the non-conference, and I think there was a lot of "yeah, but" as they kept winning. Their winning streak stood at 16 when they opened league play in Tuscaloosa, where Missouri carded an eye opening sweep of the Crimson Tide. The next weekend, Missouri split a pair of decisive games with Arkansas before losing the rubber match by one. Last weekend, also in Columbia, Missouri was swept by Florida, but lost each game by one run. They lost in the mid-week to Illinois and come to Athens with a six game losing streak and one game ahead of us in the standings at 4-5 in the league.
We'll see junior Tanner Houck on Thursday night. I've said before I thought he was the best guy we saw in Athens in 2015... his stuff is absolutely filthy... and he should go in the top half of the first round this June. We'll see his fastball in the mid 90s with a lot of bite and I think his slider is terrific as well. The scouting reports I've see say that pitch is inconsistent, and they obviously see him more and know better what to look for than I do, but I remember being really impressed with it two years ago. We did set the tone early against Houck last year. Nick King drew a walk to start the game on something like a 10 pitch AB and we were able to chase him fairly early in a game we went on to win.
On Friday (I wrote "Saturday" initially, because that's when God intended the middle game to get played), we'll see Michael Plassmeyer. Plassmeyer is a sophomore lefty whose ERA is actually a click better than Houck's.
On Saturday over at new park, we'll see Bryce Montes de Oca. This guy is a great big (6'7 260 lb) junior righty from Lawrence Kansas. He actually has the best ERA of the three (I don't know that I've seen this before. Houck's is 2.98, Plassmeyer is 2.97, and Montes de Oca is 2.96). This guy was a big time prospect coming out of high school. He was actually rated the #59 overall high school player nationwide by Perfect Game and #62 overall by Baseball America. I'm sure when Missouri got him and Houck, they figured they wouldn't need to score a ton of runs on the weekends to win. But injuries got in the way for Montes de Oca. He only threw 8 innings as a freshman in 2015, though it's not clear if or how much he was hurt that year. But last season he only logged one out all season, on Opening Weekend, and then missed the rest of the year with an elbow injury. It looks like he's pitching to his rankings now and will be a very tough matchup for us in the series finale.
Top to bottom, this is probably the best pitching staff that we've seen. LSU isn't as deep in their bullpen as they have been in the past, and there was a dropoff (but how could there not be?) after Lange/ Poche. Likewise Auburn was really good in their first two slots, but there was a dropoff on Sunday there too and they had some guys in their bullpen who were hittable. Missouri's overall staff numbers are very good. They have posted a 3.08 staff ERA and .222 average against. They're averaging 9.5 strikeouts per game and just over 3 walks per game.
Offensively, Missouri typically has a couple of good hitters and a couple of soft spots in their lineup. The last couple of years, they had an uncanny ability to get their guys up in key spots, like the 3R HR they hit in the 8th last year off Conner Jones to extend a 1-0 game to 4-0... sophomore OF Connor Brumfield, he of the same high school as Aron White and Logan Gray, looks to be their best guy at .345/.440/.455. Their leading HR hitters are Robbie Glendinning (who hails from Australia by way of something called Northern Iowa Area Community College) and Trey Harris (who hails from Powder Springs and McEachern HS). Kameron Misner is 13-15 in steals this year and here's some bad news. Missouri runs a lot. They are 44-59 in steals this year. They've converted almost twice as many as we've attempted (we are 15-23).... Unless they haven't scouted us at all, which we probably can't bank on, you can bet we'll see some guys running this weekend. Pitchers are going to have to lock in that phase of the game.
I don't know that this is a great matchup for us, on paper. I felt a lot better about Tennessee than I do this weekend. With us at 3-6 and with Arkansas out there next weekend, we really need to find a way to win this series and keep things manageable. But then, Missouri has got to be a bit frustrated coming over to Athens and they have the surprising Kentucky Wildcats on tap (in Columbia) next weekend, so I don't know that we're catching Missouri in a great spot. As good as these guys are on the mound, it's going to be crucial for us to put good ABs together... even if they don't result in hits or walks, we need to make their starters throw some pitches and work to get outs. Mitchell Webb had a great AB against Clemson last night. He didn't get a hit out of it, but he kept fighting off those two strike pitches and eventually got a walk out of it... we need to see a lot of that this weekend.
It's very possible for us to win this series... we need to have our best weekend of the year if we're going to do it, though.
Missouri has had an interesting season. They lost on Opening Night to Eastern Michigan down in Fort Myers Florida. I remember being very surprised at that result when I saw it on the scoreboard during our loss to College of Charleston, mainly because Missouri hadn't beaten a MAC team with Tanner Houck starting. The 245 people who paid to see were surprised too, I would imagine. But then, Missouri ran off 20 wins in a row. They didn't really play a murderer's row in the non-conference, and I think there was a lot of "yeah, but" as they kept winning. Their winning streak stood at 16 when they opened league play in Tuscaloosa, where Missouri carded an eye opening sweep of the Crimson Tide. The next weekend, Missouri split a pair of decisive games with Arkansas before losing the rubber match by one. Last weekend, also in Columbia, Missouri was swept by Florida, but lost each game by one run. They lost in the mid-week to Illinois and come to Athens with a six game losing streak and one game ahead of us in the standings at 4-5 in the league.
We'll see junior Tanner Houck on Thursday night. I've said before I thought he was the best guy we saw in Athens in 2015... his stuff is absolutely filthy... and he should go in the top half of the first round this June. We'll see his fastball in the mid 90s with a lot of bite and I think his slider is terrific as well. The scouting reports I've see say that pitch is inconsistent, and they obviously see him more and know better what to look for than I do, but I remember being really impressed with it two years ago. We did set the tone early against Houck last year. Nick King drew a walk to start the game on something like a 10 pitch AB and we were able to chase him fairly early in a game we went on to win.
On Friday (I wrote "Saturday" initially, because that's when God intended the middle game to get played), we'll see Michael Plassmeyer. Plassmeyer is a sophomore lefty whose ERA is actually a click better than Houck's.
On Saturday over at new park, we'll see Bryce Montes de Oca. This guy is a great big (6'7 260 lb) junior righty from Lawrence Kansas. He actually has the best ERA of the three (I don't know that I've seen this before. Houck's is 2.98, Plassmeyer is 2.97, and Montes de Oca is 2.96). This guy was a big time prospect coming out of high school. He was actually rated the #59 overall high school player nationwide by Perfect Game and #62 overall by Baseball America. I'm sure when Missouri got him and Houck, they figured they wouldn't need to score a ton of runs on the weekends to win. But injuries got in the way for Montes de Oca. He only threw 8 innings as a freshman in 2015, though it's not clear if or how much he was hurt that year. But last season he only logged one out all season, on Opening Weekend, and then missed the rest of the year with an elbow injury. It looks like he's pitching to his rankings now and will be a very tough matchup for us in the series finale.
Top to bottom, this is probably the best pitching staff that we've seen. LSU isn't as deep in their bullpen as they have been in the past, and there was a dropoff (but how could there not be?) after Lange/ Poche. Likewise Auburn was really good in their first two slots, but there was a dropoff on Sunday there too and they had some guys in their bullpen who were hittable. Missouri's overall staff numbers are very good. They have posted a 3.08 staff ERA and .222 average against. They're averaging 9.5 strikeouts per game and just over 3 walks per game.
Offensively, Missouri typically has a couple of good hitters and a couple of soft spots in their lineup. The last couple of years, they had an uncanny ability to get their guys up in key spots, like the 3R HR they hit in the 8th last year off Conner Jones to extend a 1-0 game to 4-0... sophomore OF Connor Brumfield, he of the same high school as Aron White and Logan Gray, looks to be their best guy at .345/.440/.455. Their leading HR hitters are Robbie Glendinning (who hails from Australia by way of something called Northern Iowa Area Community College) and Trey Harris (who hails from Powder Springs and McEachern HS). Kameron Misner is 13-15 in steals this year and here's some bad news. Missouri runs a lot. They are 44-59 in steals this year. They've converted almost twice as many as we've attempted (we are 15-23).... Unless they haven't scouted us at all, which we probably can't bank on, you can bet we'll see some guys running this weekend. Pitchers are going to have to lock in that phase of the game.
I don't know that this is a great matchup for us, on paper. I felt a lot better about Tennessee than I do this weekend. With us at 3-6 and with Arkansas out there next weekend, we really need to find a way to win this series and keep things manageable. But then, Missouri has got to be a bit frustrated coming over to Athens and they have the surprising Kentucky Wildcats on tap (in Columbia) next weekend, so I don't know that we're catching Missouri in a great spot. As good as these guys are on the mound, it's going to be crucial for us to put good ABs together... even if they don't result in hits or walks, we need to make their starters throw some pitches and work to get outs. Mitchell Webb had a great AB against Clemson last night. He didn't get a hit out of it, but he kept fighting off those two strike pitches and eventually got a walk out of it... we need to see a lot of that this weekend.
It's very possible for us to win this series... we need to have our best weekend of the year if we're going to do it, though.
