Johnny Wholeteam sweeps Tech

Scooter, Nick and the Mizzou pitching staff put on a great show this weekend (without the aid of Mr. Wholestaff) and the Tiger offense flexed its collective muscle to pound the Red Raiders into submission.

Or maybe it was the field.

"Missouri in general is just a tough place for an away team," said Brian Cloud, who will take the mound today for the Red Raiders. "The facilities aren't exactly what you want, the playing surface isn't what you would want it to be, but it's a place where Missouri plays good." (Daily Toreador, 4/24)

■ Tigers baseball sweeps Texas Tech (Columbia Missourian):

It is the first time this season that Missouri has swept an opponent during a weekend series. The win puts the Tigers (24-21) one game over .500 in the Big 12 and makes the reality of making their seventh straight NCAA tournament likely.

■ Hicks makes a day of it against Tech (Columbia Tribune)

Vitello had told Hicks to take it one inning at a time, and the coaching staff privately hoped to get two innings out of the senior left-hander, who’d spent far more time pitching in the ninth inning than in the first during his three seasons with the Tigers.

Nobody could have expected Hicks, in the longest outing of his career, to carry a perfect game into the fifth inning, and hold the Red Raiders to three runs in 42/3 innings, setting the tone for a 9-5 Missouri victory on Simmons Field.

■ Tigers get four perfect innings from Scooter Hicks (Columbia Missourian)

"Two innings is what we were hoping for," Jamieson said. "When they haven't put a good swing on him in two innings you put him back out there."

Instead, Hicks pitched four perfect innings to start the game and allowed three earned runs in the fifth before being removed with the lead.

■ Red Raiders have arse handed to them (DoubleTNation)

Things started out well, up 5-0, but fell apart in the bullpen in Columbia in a blowout loss to the Missouri Tigers. I won't get into all of the gory details, but let's just say that every pitcher was awful, except for outfielder Kellen Monreal. Yep, an outifielder was Texas Tech's best pitcher last night. In an effort to probably save Texas Tech's bullpen, head coach Dan Spencer allowed Monreal and DH Nick Hanslik pitch the last few innings.

■ Tech's bullpen implodes (Lubbock Avalanche Journal)

The house of horrors that is Missouri's Taylor Stadium struck the Texas Tech
baseball team again.

■ Tiger offense picks up Gibson in win (Columbia Missourian)

Met by the team at home plate, Senne had a grin across his face. Senne had gone 148 at-bats before hitting his first home run of the year.

"It was a pretty big celebration," Senne said.

Center fielder Greg Folgia joked that he popped up quickly in his at-bat following Senne's home run so he could get back to the dugout to join the celebration.

■ Offensive explosion (Columbia Tribune)

“I went out there, got a little too jacked up in the beginning, leaving the ball up,” said Gibson, who finished with nine strikeouts. “That’s really the only time I got hurt tonight, when I was leaving it up.”

The junior from Greenfield, Ind., made some adjustments after that and again resembled the Tigers’ ace. He kept Texas Tech off the scoreboard over the next five innings — including a string of 13 straight outs — to let Missouri’s offense creep back in the game.