Baseball and softball struggle through the last weekend of winter

Weekends are supposed to be easy. Light. Fun. Relaxing. Maybe someone should remind the Mizzou diamond sports.

It was a tough weekend for baseball and softball, which combined to go 1-6 as Steve Bieser’s Tigers were swept at Vanderbilt and Larissa Anderson’s Tigers lost three of four games at their own tournament.

Let’s start with the men, shall we?

Mizzou Baseball had a chance to avoid a sweep against No. 4 Vanderbilt on Sunday, but fell victim to a four-run seventh inning and eventually dropped the final game of the series 7-4.

The Tigers were up 4-3 headed into the final innings of the game before the Commodores (17-2) finally broke through against Missouri’s bullpen.

To lead off the inning, Landry gave up a second pair of back-to-back home runs that put Vanderbilt up for good. After the homers, Landry was taken out of the game in favor of Carter Rustad, who made things worse.

A failed pickoff attempt scored one runner and put another in scoring position. The second runner later scored off a double.

Getting outscored 28-6 isn’t a great way to open SEC play, but it hurts especially bad when you had a win in the bag that late in the game. It’s a tough break for Mizzou, which falls to 12-5 on the season. They’ll head home next weekend, but the opponent — No. 3 Arkansas — won’t make things any easier on them.

Back in Columbia, things weren’t going much better for Larissa Anderson’s team. The Tigers welcomed No. 12 Northwestern, just-out-of-the-top-25 Stanford, and Ball State to CoMo for the Mizzou Classic and ended up with a less-than-classic performance. Missouri dropped their first three games (one to each opponent, the first two in extras) before closing out the weekend with a 5-0 win over Stanford.

Some of Mizzou’s struggles can be attributed to the loss of Casidy Chautmont, the Tigers’ best hitter.

Missouri will get a chance to rebound on Wednesday against Western Illinois before heading to Ole Mis next weekend.

Yesterday at Rock M

• In which Sam argues that Dennis Gates may make a lot more sense than we think
• In which Karen previewed (and y’all commented) on Mizzou Softball’s final day of a pretty rough weekend

More Links:

• Can someone teach me a pre-work ritual similar to Keegan O’Toole’s pre-match ritual? I think I could use this sort of motivation.

Keegan O’Toole warmed up in the tunnel here at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday night wearing a gold shirt displaying the words “THE CHAMP IS HERE” as well as a picture of a professional wrestling belt.

Turns out, that warm-up gear was something of a premonition.

Cody Goodwin detailed the routine, and spoke to O’Toole about injuries he sustained during his championship run, at the Columbia Tribune.

• Speaking of O’Toole, his teammate Noah Surtin had some thoughts on the team’s performance in the NCAA Championships.

• Not sure how many of you follow former Mizzou Tiger Najeeb Echols on Twitter, but he’s understandably a big fan of the Dennis Gates hire considering they were high school teammates.
• ICYMI from the weekend: Mizzou Gymnastics is on the way up!

• Mizzou Women’s Golf tied for 15th this weekend at the MountainView Collegiate, led by Noelle Beijer and her third top 25 finish of the season.
• Mizzou Tennis fell to 6-12 on the season after dropping yesterday’s match against South Carolina.
• If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now!
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