Missouri baseball drops SEC home opener to No. 6 Auburn

The lights went out at Taylor Stadium for 95 minutes. In sync, so were Missouri baseball’s chances of generating a late comeback in its 2-0 loss to No.6 Auburn in its SEC home opener at Taylor Stadium Friday evening.

By the time the bulbs had flickered back on, a window for a Missouri rally had all but closed for the Tigers’ offense, as Auburn’s pitching, in particular, its starter Jake Marciano, whose outing lasted seven innings. Marciano held a Missouri offense that was the fastest in program history to reach 100 runs in a season, to a grand total of zero, while striking out seven.

Equally, Auburn’s hitters were just as shackled for seven innings, reinforcing the strong start to a season for the Missouri pitching staff, who came in to this game seventh in the country in hits allowed per nine innings.

On paper, this game had all of the makings of an offensive slugfest. Firstly, location. The wind turbine that is Taylor Stadium in Columbia carries the ball at its peak with ease over the outfield fences. Second, the hitting talent. Coming into this game, both sets of Tigers had hitters put up big numbers in non-conference play.

Auburn’s Brandon McCraine and Bristol Carter, holding .468 and .457 batting averages, respectively, hold the current two and three spots in the SEC in that category. Tyler Macon and Cameron Benson sit in the first and fourth slots for Mizzou. This recipe of sluggers surely presented the ultimate dish that is an offensive slugfest in a conference opener, right?

Well, that’s not how it tracked. Both starting pitchers, Pimental and on the Auburn side, Jake Mariciano (2-0, 1.23 ERA), were reeling and dealing on the mound, allowing a combined total of five hits between the two teams in the opening five innings.

Following his tumultuous outing against the UIC Flames, Missouri starting pitcher Javyn Pimental found his groove at the perfect time: the beginning of Southeastern Conference play.

This start was the ultimate rebound for Pimental, who was coming off an outing in which he lasted 1.1 innings and gave up six earned runs, while walking three. If that was Jekyll, this start was Hyde, as a total of three Auburn runners were left in scoring position through Pimental’s six innings on the mound.

“That’s Javyn,“ Mizzou coach Kerrick Jackson said. ”That’s what he’s done. He didn’t necessarily have his best stuff — struggled with command at times — but minus what happened last weekend… what I saw from him last weekend was just kind of wow. What I saw from him tonight is what you expect. He did it two years ago against Arkansas. That’s just what he does. He’s going to go out, he’s going to compete, he’s going to give you a chance to win. He did that tonight for us.“

Missouri’s bats didn’t fare much better, accumulating two hits throughout the entire contest. Both were doubles from Eric Maisonet and Pierre Seals across the third and fourth innings.

I think we were trying,” Jackson said. “What we talk about all the time is: trying is not it. You have a plan, and you execute your plan. We had big swings, and we didn’t execute the plan we had in place.”

The action was relatively quiet in the batter’s box until the top half of the eighth.

Freshman pitcher JD Dorhmann, who came in for his first relief outing of the season after starting three games this season, worked his way out of trouble in the seventh inning with Auburn runners on second and third. The eighth inning? Dohrmann wasn’t so lucky.

After surrendering a walk to the leadoff batter of the inning, Chase Fralick, two batters later, the hammer was finally dropped. Bub Terell, who ranked third on Auburn in homers this season, connected on a two-run shot that traveled well over the right field fence, leading to the dugout mafia of Auburn erupting, as they’d earned their 2-0 lead.

Then, before Mason McCraine could even come up to the plate immediately after, a portion of the lights went out at Taylor Stadium and stayed out. For 95 minutes. This time allowed for multiple things: more time to write, funny tweets between the other reporters and me in the press box, and most interestingly, a test of the lumen levels inside Taylor Stadium.

After the lumen guy took the field at Taylor Stadium to test if the light levels were good enough to play the remaining inning and a half, after gaining half of the infield lights back, the contest resumed at 9:45 P.M. The light delay had started at 8:15.

Unlike the last time there was a delay on their home turf, the Missouri bats didn’t generate a spark after returning to action. The right-handed reliever for Auburn, Garett Brewer, put the top of the Missouri lineup swiftly down in order, all striking out swinging in the penultimate inning.

The ninth inning for Missouri, still trailing 2-0, didn’t generate much suspense. The Auburn staff ended the night, showing exactly why they hadn’t allowed more than two runs in the previous five games. Brewer shut the door, even after conceding a single to Benson, to give Auburn its fourth SEC road opening win in the past six seasons.

“For me, it doesn’t matter who’s in the other dugout,“ Jackson said. ”You play the game the same way regardless of the opponent. We pitched it well tonight. We played good defense. We didn’t have good enough at‑bats.“