University of Missouri
19-14, 3-8
Auburn
15-16, 3-8
Tanner Houck’s Complete Game Shutout Lifts @MizzouBaseball Over Auburn
4/8/2016 9:33:00 PM | Baseball
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Mizzou sophomore RHP Tanner Houck (Collinsville, Ill.) tossed his second complete-game shutout of the season as Mizzou Baseball defeated Auburn, 2-0, on Friday night at Taylor Stadium. Houck tallied 10 strikeouts while walking only one batter and allowing only four hits against the SEC's top hitting offense. Auburn hitters struggled to get solid contact as Houck induced 14 groundouts to go along with his 10 strikeouts. Two of the four hits he allowed were infield knocks. Mizzou's victory tied the series at one game apiece as Mizzou is now 19-14 on the year and 3-8 in SEC play.
Sophomore 3B Shane Benes (Town & Country, Mo.) went 2-for-4 with a double to continue his hot streak at the plate. He has reached base in nine consecutive games, hitting two home runs and three doubles in that stretch. He also had an impressive diving stop at third base, making the throw to keep the runner out of scoring position.
Mizzou's first run of the game came in the first inning. OF Kirby McGuire (Round Rock, Texas) moved up to second base after leading off the game with a single. A throwing error on a Trey Harris (Powder Springs, Ga.) grounder allowed McGuire to cross the plate to get the lead. The team was then able to tack on an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth when Jake Ring (Ingleside, Ill.) scored from third on a passed ball.
But Houck needed just the run in the first inning as Mizzou recorded its fourth shutout of the year and the second with Houck on the hill. Both of his outings were complete-game shutouts.
Mizzou will finish the series on Saturday (April 9) at 12 p.m. For all the latest on all things Mizzou Baseball, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team on twitter @MizzouBaseball and like the team on Facebook and Instagram (Mizzou Baseball).
Hear From Mizzou
Mizzou Head Coach Tim Jamieson
On Tanner Houck's performance…
"Well you hope to get something close to that from your best pitcher. Not to take anything away from Reggie (McClain), but Tanner is arguably the best pitcher in our conference. You need to have performances like that in our conference to do well. He was great tonight but I think that needs to be something we expect on a regular basis from him."
On whether he thought Tanner's performance was dominating…
"This is very similar to the Vanderbilt start except he was probably better today than he was against Vanderbilt. This was the kind of performance that you think you would get from a guy like that on a regular basis. But a shutout – we played pretty good defense behind him too so there's a lot of factors with that. But to go into the eighth inning or ninth inning and still be right around 100 pitches, that's a pretty good performance."
Mizzou RHP Tanner Houck
On his performance…
"Fastball was huge. Showed really early that I could command it for strikes with a lot of movement. That was my go-to tonight. Then backing that up with the slider whenever I needed it. Then I could get them to chase out of the zone occasionally and then coming back in with the fastball."
On the defense…
"Every out in 27 outs is huge, especially in the SEC. You can't take an out of pitch off, so just every play in the infield and outfield was huge."
Postgame Notes
- Mizzou now leads the series, 9-4.
- Mizzou is now 4-1 in shutouts this season.
- Mizzou has scored in the first inning in both games of the series and 12 games this season after scoring a run in the first Friday.
- Mizzou is now 5-3 on Fridays this season.
- Kirby McGuire extended his hitting streak to a career-high eight games with a leadoff single.
- Tonight marked McGuire's nine consecutive appearance with a run scored.
- Zach Lavy extended his reached-base streak to eight games.
- Connor Brumfield has now reached base in 16 of his last 17 games.
- Brumfield has drawn a walk in 14 of his last 16 appearances.
- Shane Benes extended his reached-base streak to nine games.
- Zach Lavy hit his team-leading 11th double of the season. It was his 20th extra-base hit of the season.
- Lavy has a hit in 10 of his last 11 games.
- Houck tallied at least one strikeout in each of his first 6 innings pitched.
- This was the fourth time in five games that Benes reached base multiple times.
- This was Mizzou's fourth game of the season allowing no runs to cross the plate.
- Jake Ring drew his team-leading 26th walk of the season.
- This was Tanner Houck's third nine-inning shutout performance of the season.
- This was Houck's third game of the season with 8 or more strikeouts and only one walk. His 10 strikeouts Friday are the second-most of his career.
- Benes tallied his seventh double of the season.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Houck, Tanner (4-2)
L: Camp, Justin (2-2)
Batting:
2B: Lavy, Zach 1 ; Shane Benes 1
SH: Ring, Jake 1
Base Running:
RUNS: McGuire, Kirby 1 ; Ring, Jake 1
