Baseball Hosts Western Illinois in Midweek Showdown

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Missouri baseball continues its 13-game home stand Tuesday (March 7) with a 3 p.m., non-conference matchup with Western Illinois at Taylor Stadium.

Mizzou completed a three-game sweep of Texas Southern on Sunday, rallying from a 6-0 deficit by scoring 11 unanswered runs in a 15-7 victory that extended its win streak to seven games.

Fans can once again catch Mizzou baseball on the airwaves all season long on KTGR and the Tiger Radio Network. Tex Little and Matt Michaels return to the booth for the call. Additionally, Tuesday’s game will be streamed live on SEC Network+.

PITCHING PROBABLES

RHP Logan Lunceford (Mizzou) vs. TBD (Western Illinois)

SERIES HISTORY

• Tuesday’s contest will be the 32nd meeting in the series between Mizzou and WIU.
• Mizzou brings a 26-5 all-time edge in the series into Tuesday’s game, including wins in each of the last seven meetings dating back to the 2009 season.
• The two clubs met last April, with the Tigers claiming a 9-1 victory at Taylor Stadium; Trevor Austin went 3-for-3 with a home run and three RBIs to lead Mizzou.

MEET THE TIGERS

• Missouri is off to a 9-2 start to the season after running its win streak to seven in a row with its three-game sweep of Texas Southern over the weekend.
• The Tigers are receiving votes (2) in this week’s USA Today Sports Baseball Top 25 Coaches Poll for the second week in a row.
• Mizzou’s 2023 roster features a heavy helping of talent from within the state of Missouri’s borders, with 16 players from the Show-Me State.
• Additionally, Mizzou head coach Steve Bieser has brought in players from a total of 16 different states, plus the territory of Puerto Rico.
• A host of newcomers should bolster a group of 14 returning letterwinners; 10 freshmen will join 10 transfers to give the Tigers a new look across the diamond in 2023.
• Ty Wilmsmeyer saw his 12-game hit streak come to an end Saturday, but still brings a .415 batting mark into Tuesday’s game.
• Luke Mann is hitting at a .405 clip and has homered five times through the first 11 games.
• Hank Zeisler homered in four-straight games (Feb. 23-26) and leads the club in walks (12), homers (5) and RBIs (16).
• Chandler Murphy logged 6.0 shutout innings in an 8-0 blanking of Texas Southern on Saturday, giving the right-hander his first victory as a Tiger.
• As a team, the Tigers are batting .315 and have out-homered the opposition by an 18-4 count through the first 11 games of the season.
• The Mizzou pitching staff has logged double-digit strikeout totals in eight of its 11 games.

MEET THE LEATHERNECKS

• Western Illinois brings a 1-10 season mark into Tuesday’s game.
• The Leathernecks of first-year head coach Tayler Sheriff have lost nine straight contests dating back to Feb. 18.
• WIU is hitting .261 as a club, with 22 steals in 28 total attempts through 11 games.
• Sophomore outfielder Nick Mitchell leads the Leathernecks with a .512 batting average with three homers, four steals and 14 RBIs to date.
• Junior infielder Jake Allgeyer has also enjoyed a strong start, batting .390 with a pair of home runs and 11 RBIs.
• On the mound, WIU has yielded a 9.50 ERA through the first 11 games.

GOING STREAKING

• Mizzou extended its win streak to seven games with a three-game sweep of Texas Southern that followed a 17-2 victory over Lindenwood on Tuesday.
• The Tigers’ win streak matches their longest since the 2018 season, when they won nine games in a row (Feb. 27-March 13).
• As a club, Mizzou is hitting .326 over the last seven games, outscoring the opposition by a 72-27 margin.
• Led by four home runs apiece from Luke Mann and Hank Zeisler, eight different Tigers have combined to hit 14 bombs over the course of the streak.
• Mann has been the Tigers’ top regular at the plate, hitting .480 (12-for-25) with 12 runs scored, while Zeisler has driven in 13 runs during the same span.
• On the base paths, Mizzou is 15-of-17 in steal attempts.
• A total of 15 Tiger hurlers have combined to allow just 23 earned runs, while striking out 71 hitters in 57.0 IP.
• A pair of freshmen have contributed in big ways during the streak, with Dalton Bargo hitting .450 (9-for-20) with seven RBIs and Jackson Lovich batting .500 (4-for-8) with a home run and five RBIs.

MANN-ING UP

• Luke Mann continued his climb up the Mizzou home run chart (see above), hitting his 32nd and 33rd career round-trippers over the weekend to move into sole possession of the No. 9 spot on the list.
• Mann needs two more long balls to catch Ryan Stegall and Dave Silvestri in the No. 7 position on the chart.
• The St. Louis native saw his personal hit streak of eight straight games (dating back to May 14, 2022) come to an end Feb. 23 at FIU, but has followed up that effort by logging hits in each of the Tigers’ last seven games.
• Mann was tabbed for first-team preseason laurels, becoming the first Tiger honoree since Kameron Misner’s second-team selection five years ago.
• The fifth-year third baseman from St. Louis belted 15 of his 17 home runs last season in SEC play.
• Mann’s 17 blasts were the most by a Tiger since Cody Ehlers hit 18 round-trippers in 2004.
• His 15 home runs in SEC games ranked second among all league batters.

GETTING OFFENSIVE

• The Tigers’ 17 runs vs. Lindenwood (Feb. 28) not only marked a 2023 season high, but also their best offensive showing since a 19-run outburst vs. Mississippi State on April 30 of last year.
• Mizzou followed that up by scoring 31 runs in a three-game sweep of Texas Southern over the weekend.
• The Tigers weekend sweep included a string of 11 unanswered runs in Sunday’s 15-7 victory that included a nine-run fourth inning to help MU overcome an early 6-0 deficit.
• The Tigers have batted .326 while averaging 10.3 runs per contest over the course of their seven-game win streak.

WHAT A RELIEF

• Mizzou’s bullpen has been a driving force in the club’s strong start to the season, registering a 3.42 ERA, while holding the opposition to a minuscule .183 batting average against.
• The Tiger relief corps has registered seven of the clubs’ nine victories and totaled 78 strikeouts in 50.0 combined innings, allowing just 19 earned runs on 33 hits.
• The group turned in a performance to remember at the College Baseball Showdown (Feb. 17-19), registering 29 strikeouts over the first three games of the season.
• The seven Tiger relievers who worked at the College Baseball Showdown went 2-0 with a 2.04 ERA, allowing just eight hits over a combined 17.2 innings.
• Tony Neubeck established a personal career high with nine strikeouts in his 3 2/3 innings vs. Oklahoma State, then posted 5.0 more shutout innings to earn a win at FIU (Feb. 24).
• Grad transfer Zach Franklin has made four appearances out of the MU pen, registering two wins and a save while fanning 19 over his 8.2 innings.

BIESER BELIEVER

• Mizzou head coach Steve Bieser is in his seventh year guiding the Tigers, entering the week with a 167-133-1 record as MU’s bench boss.
• Bieser topped the 300-victory mark with Mizzou’s 10-4 win at FIU on Feb. 25, and enters Tuesday’s game with a career 305-230-1 mark in 11 seasons as a collegiate head coach.
• The Tigers have finished with an overall record above .500 in five of Bieser’s six seasons.
• Bieser’s 104 wins from 2017-19 were the most ever by a Mizzou baseball coach in his first three campaigns.
• Additionally, Bieser’s win total marked the winningest three-year stretch by the Tigers since 2008-10 (103 victories).
• Mizzou produced 39 wins in Southeastern Conference play from 2017-19 as well, marking its top three-year stretch in league play since joining its new conference in 2013.

POWER DISPLAY

• Mizzou’s offense has picked up right where it left off last spring, outhomering the opposition by an 18-4 count through its first 11 games.
• Eight different Tigers have gone deep to date, including Luke Mann and Hank Zeisler, who share the team lead and rank 29th nationally with five homers apiece.
• The 2022 Tigers set Mizzou’s BBCOR-era home run standard with 62 long balls for the season, which represented its top total since the 1998 squad blasted a school-record 110 bombs.
• In records dating to 1950, only 10 Mizzou teams have hit 55 or more homers in a season, and last year’s club tied for the seventh-best total in program history.

THROWING SMOKE

• Mizzou’s pitching staff is off to a blazing hot start, with eight double-digit strikeout totals in its first 11 games.
• The Tigers rank 17th nationally as a staff in strikeouts per nine innings (11.7).
• Tony Neubeck leads the club with 20 punchouts in 12.2 innings, good for an average of 14.21 per nine innings.

FOLLOW THE TIGERS

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