Missouri Baseball Drops Series Opener Against Georgia in Offensive Face-off

Missouri followed up their first SEC series win of the year with back-to-back losses.

A couple innings of cold bats put the Tigers behind early, leading to their eventual 15-10 loss to the Bulldogs in game one of the series.

The Tigers have taken the lead in the first inning in four straight SEC games. Missouri’s recent hero at the plate, junior Jedier Hernandez put the Tigers on the board early with a double that brought home Trevor Austin, who walked and advanced on a wild pitch.

Sighs of relief were exhaled as fifth-year starting pitcher Carter Rustad pitched through a bases loaded situation to keep Georgia off the board in the second inning, but he wasn’t able to give the same relief in the next innings. He gave up a solo home run to the NCAA home run leader Charlie Condon that went 457 feet to tie the game.

Things unfolded quite poorly after that. There was a lot of traffic on the bases once more, but this time Rustad didn’t come away clean. He gave up back-to-back-back hits to allow two more runs to the Bulldogs before his first out of the inning. Another hit and an intentional walk filled the bases again and a double from graduate Dylan Goldstein lifted Georgia’s lead to four.

Graduate Jacob Peaden took the bump in the bottom of the fourth after a four-run inning from Rustad. He provided another disastrous inning to put the Bulldogs run total up to 11. He allowed six runs of his own on four hits to make it one of the largest deficits that the Tigers have faced this season.

Condon homered for the second time in the game in the seventh off of Kaden Jacobi to bring in another two runs and further his lead in both the game and in the NCAA home run leader charts.

The Tigers scratched their way back to a much smaller deficit with a five-run sixth and a three-run eighth. The sixth inning was powered by freshman centerfielder Kaden Peer’s two-run homer, graduate second baseman Matt Garcia’s triple and freshman first baseman Brock Daniels’ double to put them down by five.

They went back to work in the eighth with an offensive show from designated hitter Thomas Curry, who pinch-hit for sophomore Jackson Lovich, Peer and Garcia. In three innings, they put up nine runs and make quite the comeback.

But this wasn’t enough to help the Tigers against the Bulldogs since Georgia’s bats didn’t stop in Missouri’s offensive resurgence.

Missouri’s record drops to 15-20 and 4-9 in conference play, while Georgia improves to 26-8 and 6-7. The Tigers will return to the field on April 12 at 5 p.m. for game two of the series.