Mizzou 8, Monmouth 0

Schedule:

Sunday

Game 5: Western Kentucky vs. Missouri, 1 PM (loser is eliminated)

Game 6: Mississippi vs. Game 5 winner, 5 PM

Monday: If Mississippi loses game 6, Game 7 will be played on Monday

Game 7: Game 6 rematch, 7 PM

■ Post-game Press Conference quotes (from Oxford Regional Central):

Tim Jamieson on pitching plans for Sunday: “I will talk to Coach (Tony) Vitello about it. I guess it will be (Ian) Berger in the first game with everyone available except for Kyle. If we don’t use Berger in the first game, we will probably use Scooter (Hicks) or Johnny Wholestaff or some combination of that.”

Monmouth Senior OF Brett Holland on facing (Kyle) Gibson“I myself was excited to face a kid of that kind of caliber. I knew it was going to be tough for us. He pitched a heck of a ballgame. He was throwing three pitches for strikes, especially to right-handers his slider was tough. He threw me a couple of change-ups and he was spotting each pitch to make it really tough on the hitters.”

■ It was a record-setting day for Kyle Gibson, according to MUTigers.com:

Junior Kyle Gibson tied the school record for strikeouts in a season after he struck out eight in eight scoreless innings pitched in a 9-0 Missouri win over Monmouth on Saturday in the NCAA Oxford Regional. Gibson now has 131 strikeouts on the year, tying the MU record set by Max Scherzer in 2005.

For his career, Gibson has 304 strikeouts, moving him into second place in the Mizzou record books. He allowed six runs and walked one on Saturday afternoon, improving to 11-3 on the season. He has won his last six starts. The win was the 28th of Gibson's career, which is tied for second all-time at Mizzou.

■ Gibson keeps Tigers alive (Columbia Tribune)

“Our plans were to throw Kyle and have him go as far as he could and save the bullpen and save everybody,” Jamieson said, “so if we do get the chance to play two games tomorrow, we have everybody available and rested. We’ll take our shot with that."

■ Despite arm issue, Gibson keeps tigers in NCAA tournament (Columbia Missourian):

Missouri pitcher Kyle Gibson's arm was hurting again.

For the past couple weeks, Gibson has experienced forearm tightness in his pitching arm and it happened again on Saturday. His fastball, that usually reaches 93 mph, only reached 87. Despite the tightness, Gibson dominated another opponent.
. . .
Gibson nursed his forearm by icing it and taking an extended rest between starts. Trainer Matt Long supervised Gibson's pregame warmup on Saturday and has helped Gibson work through the problem. Also, Gibson has had 12 days and 10 days to rest in between his last two starts which helped the problem.

“It’s not hurt. My forearm has tightened up a little bit just from the long season,”
Gibson said. “It’s something that I have had the trainers work on and try to make it just as good as I can. You have to battle through tightness once in a while.”

■ Go figure (Clarion Ledger)

Missouri coach Tim Jamieson didn't pitch his ace Kyle Gibson against Western Kentucky Friday and paid the price. He said it was a gamble he felt he had to take, figuring he needed Gibson to beat host and top-seed Ole Miss.

If that was the right move Friday, then why did he pitch Gibson against Monmouth on Saturday? Gibson went eight innings and beat Hawks 9-0.

"I came out and watched Monmouth play Ole Miss last night and was impressed with the way they battled," Jamieson said. "We needed somebody to pitch deep into the game tonight to have enough pitchers to have a chance on Sunday."

Gibson gave up six hits, striking out eight over eight innings. But pro scouts, with their radar guns, were shaking their heads. Gibson, normally in the low to mid 90s with his fastball was topping out in the mid-80. Several of his fastballs were in the
82-83 mph range.

"That's a red flag right there," one said.

Gibson said afterward he felt tightness in his forearm that probably affected his velocity.

One now wonders whether the arm issue had anything to do with Jamieson's Friday
decision. That would make more sense than the way Jamieson has pitched it.

■