MO State HS Sports

Tigers, Jayhawks Set to Renew Baseball Rivalry Wednesday in Kansas City

Hank Zeisler

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The No. 15/21 University of Missouri baseball team renews one of its oldest and most frequently contested rivalries Wednesday (March 22) at 6 p.m. (CT) when it meets the Kansas Jayhawks at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

Missouri is off to its best start to a season since 2017, bringing a 16-3 overall mark into Wednesday’s game following its three-game SEC opening series sweep of nationally-ranked Tennessee this past weekend.

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, Wednesday’s game will be streamed live on ESPN+.

PITCHING PROBABLES
RHP Logan Lunceford (Mizzou) vs. RHP Karter Muck (Kansas)

SERIES HISTORY
•    Wednesday’s game will mark the 349th all-time meeting of the teams, making KU the Tigers most frequent opponent.
•    The Tigers lead the all-time series 217-129-2.
•    It will be the fifth meeting of the Tigers and Jayhawks at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals.
•    Kansas has won each of the previous four meetings in KC (2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011).
•    Mizzou is looking for its second straight win over KU after claiming a 14-6 victory last April in Columbia.
•    The series between the Tigers and Jayhawks dates back 122 years to 1901.

MEET THE TIGERS
•    The Tigers have won five in a row and are ranked as high as No. 15 (Collegiate Baseball) in the national polls this week, including a No. 21 ranking from the NCBWA.
•    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.
•    Ross Lovich is hitting a club-best .405 clip, despite being limited to 11 games due to injury.
•    Hank Zeisler has bben the Tigers’ most consistent power threat and run producer, totaling eight home runs and 24 RBIs to date.
•    Chandler Murphy turned in a string of 16.1 consecutive scoreless innings, Feb. 23-March 10, and has won three decisions in a row (since March 4).
•    Zach Franklin leads the club with four victories and 35 strikeouts in seven appearances.
•    As a team, the Tigers are batting .303 and have outhomered the opposition by a 28-14 count through the first 19 games of the season.
•    The Mizzou pitching staff has logged double-digit strikeout totals in 13 of its 19 games and enters Wednesday’s game with the 19th best ERA (3.46) in the nation.

MEET THE JAYHAWKS
•    Under the direction of first-year head coach Dan Fitzgerald, Kansas has gone 8-10 to start the season. 
•    The Jayhawks snapped a six-game slide with a 12-8 road win over The Citadel on Sunday.
•    Kansas is hitting .271 as a team with 21 home runs through its first 18 games.
•    Chase Jans paces the KU offense with a .333 batting average to go along with a team-high 13 RBIs.
•    Janson Reeder and Jake English share the team lead with four homers apiece.
•    On the mound, Collin Baumgartner leads the way for KU with a 2-0 record, 2.96 ERA and 27 strikeouts.
•    The Jayhawk pitching staff has logged a 4.92 team ERA and combined on three total shutouts, the latter of which ranks eighth nationally.

POLL BUSINESS
•    Mizzou cracked the national rankings for the first time this season Monday, peaking at No. 15 overall in Collegiate Baseball Newspaper’s poll. 
•    The Tigers also broke into Baseball America’s Top 25 at No. 18, secured the No. 21 spot in both the NCBWA and USA Today Coaches polls and ranked 22nd in D1Baseball’s survey. 
•    This week’s recognition marks Mizzou’s first regular-season top 25 ranking since May 2019.
•    The Tigers rose to No. 17 in Monday’s NCAA Division I RPI ratings as well.

HOW SWEEP IT IS
•    Missouri wrapped up its 12-game home stand with a three-game sweep of defending SEC champ Tennessee over the weekend.
•    The Tigers outscored the No. 2/4 Volunteers by a 23-6 margin in the SEC opening series for both clubs.
•    Trevor Austin paced Mizzou against UT, hitting .556 (5-for-9) with four runs scored and four RBIs in the series.
•    The sweep—the Tigers’ first against a ranked SEC foe since joining the conference in 2013—gave Missouri its first in an SEC opening series since 2015, when its swept Georgia on the road.
•    The Tigers also notched their first sweep of Tennessee since 2017.

NON-CON DOMINATION
•    Mizzou’s 13-3 start leading into SEC play continued a string of recent dominance during the nonconference season.
•    The Tigers went 18-3 in nonconference play last spring, giving them an overall mark of 31-6 in non-SEC competition since the start of the 2022 season.
•    Mizzou hit .310 against non-league foes and averaged more than nine runs per game, while also posting a 3.76 team ERA in those contests.
•    Individually, Dalton Bargo is hitting .382 with one homer and nine RBIs during nonconference play.
•    During Steve Bieser’s tenure as head coach, the Tigers have posted a cumulative 112-39 record in nonconference play, good for a .742 win percentage.

MANN-ING UP
•    Luke Mann continued his climb up the Mizzou home run chart (see above), hitting his 32nd and 33rd career round-trippers against Texas Southern (March 4-5) 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 career-best 12-game hit streak (Feb. 24-March 15) end in Friday’s SEC opener with Tennessee.
•    The fifth-year third baseman hit .400 (18-for-45) with four homers and 11 RBIs during his hit streak. 
•    Mann was tabbed for first-team preseason laurels, becoming the first Tiger honoree since Kameron Misner’s second-team selection five years ago.
•    Mann’s 17 blasts were the most by a Tiger since Cody Ehlers hit 18 round-trippers in 2004.

HAMMERIN’ HANK HONORED…AGAIN
•    Graduate first baseman Hank Zeisler was honored by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper with one of its national player of the week honors for the second time in four weeks on Monday.
•    Zeisler homered three times in last Wednesday’s win over Lamar, becoming the first Tiger to do so in a game since 2017.
•    The Kendfield, Calif., native was previously honored by CBN on Feb. 27 after homering in each of Mizzou’s four games at FIU (Feb. 23-26).
•    Zeisler’s string of home runs in four consecutive games is believed to be the longest by a Tiger since 2001, when Ryan Stegall homered in four straight contests (April 28-May 5).

WHAT A RELIEF
•    Mizzou’s bullpen has been a driving force in the club’s strong start to the season, registering a 3.39 ERA, while holding the opposition to a minuscule .182 batting average against.
•    The Tiger relief corps has registered 10 of the clubs’ 16 victories and totaled 126 strikeouts in 82.1 combined innings, allowing just 31 earned runs on 54 hits.
•    The group turned in a performance to remember at the College Baseball Showdown (Feb. 17-19), recording 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); the sophomore lefty has posted a 1.84 ERA, one save and a .132 average against in his five relief outings.
•    Grad transfer Zach Franklin has made seven appearances out of the MU pen, registering four wins and a save while fanning 35 over his 17.1 innings.

TIGERS ON THE TUBE
•    Missouri is slated to appear in at least nine linear broadcasts on the ESPN family of networks over the course of the 2022 season.
•    The Tigers will play in eight matchups televised on the SEC Network, along with an ESPNU broadcast at Texas A&M on April 13.
•    Additionally, four regular-season dates have been designated as potential wild cards, allowing the league to select additional games for broadcast.
•    Mizzou’s SEC matchups and select non-conference games will stream on SEC Network+, including two of this weekend’s upcoming contests at South Carolina.

FOLLOW THE TIGERS
For all the latest information on Mizzou baseball, please visit MUTigers.com. For up-to-the-minute updates, follow the Tigers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

This article is provided by University of Missouri Athletics