■ So what went wrong? And is this a terminal case of BadBaseball-itis or just early season jitters? I'll start the Quotes & Notes by quoting myself, from the Q&A I did for RockMNation last week:
It should also be noted that there were 9 unearned runs for the weekend, which points a stubby finger at the defense as well. On Friday night I was marvelling at the great D on display. By the end of the weekend I was shaking my head, baffled.
The offense misfired a few times, but really, 28 runs in a 4-game set ought to be enough to win more than a single game.
■ Tim Jaimeson, on mutigers.com:
Really, the Tigers' effectiveness as a team in 2009 may hinge on those sophomore pitchers consistently fulfilling their potential.That opinion was obviously in error. I shouldn't have singled out just the sophomores. There were some good outings by Tiger pitchers: Gibson, Mueller, Clubb, Gargano and Clark still have 0.00 ERAs, with a combined line of 4 hits and 4 bases on balls among them in 9-1/2 innings pitched; plus Jeff Emens gave up just 1 run in 2-1/3 innings. But the rest of the staff was generally ineffective, resulting in a team ERA for the weekend of 5.66, giving up 22 earned runs in 4 games.
It should also be noted that there were 9 unearned runs for the weekend, which points a stubby finger at the defense as well. On Friday night I was marvelling at the great D on display. By the end of the weekend I was shaking my head, baffled.
The offense misfired a few times, but really, 28 runs in a 4-game set ought to be enough to win more than a single game.
■ Tim Jaimeson, on mutigers.com:
"You can't pinpoint just one area and say that is the area we need to get better," Head Coach Tim Jamieson said. "It's everything. We didn't run the bases well, didn't play defense well and made mistakes at bad times."■ CollegeBaseball.Rivals.com says Wacky weekend sends some falling, and list Missouri among the Losers:
The Big 12 had a productive weekend. Missouri was the exception. The Tigers looked very good in Game 1 against Nevada, but struggled the rest of the weekend out in Arizona. They dropped a 9-3 decision to Gonzaga on Saturday and had a dismal Sunday, dropping contests to Nevada and Gonzaga by scores of 8-4 and 13-9, respectively. Missouri's schedule only gets tougher this week, so it must find a way to regroup sooner rather than later.■ From the opinionators at TigerBoard.com:
KCTiger83: Major issues from 08 repeating . . . Horrible defense continues to allow an incredible amount of unearned runs. . . 9 errors and 9 unearned runs allowed in 4 games. . . This is a repeat of the comedy of last year's lack of defensive fundamentals. You simply can't put a team out there with seasoned guys in CF, 1B, C, RF, 3B, plus no E's on Thigpen yet, and just hand the other teams runs like last year. The fielding, not pitching continues to be the single most detrimental factor on this team.■ The Maneater points out a problem and points to what's next:
in-the-mix: This is no surprise!! But the pitching is soft in my opinion. Pitching should dominate the first month.
TigerNation25: Let's see how the first couple weeks play out. Can't judge everyone by one start. Tep should be alright, and Whopper didn't pitch awful. Fick was actually OK too...lets just get them some innings under their belt.
Defense was a big problem for the Tigers over the weekend, as in four games Missouri committed nine errors. If Missouri expects to live up to the No. 10 preseason ranking bestowed upon them by Baseball America, the defense will have■ And a prediction from Matt Stephens of the Kansas Jayhawks Examiner:
to improve.
Missouri will get a good early-season challenge Tuesday when the Tigers take on Arizona State Tuesday night at 7:30 pm. The Sun Devils were ranked No. 13 in Baseball America’s preseason rankings.
The Tigers started the season No. 19 in the country according to the Rivals.com poll, but will likely drop from the Top 25 all together after a disappointing weekend in Phoenix.
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