@MizzouBaseball Puts 10-Game Win Streak On the Line vs. Eastern Illinois Tuesday

Mizzou Looks to Push Win Streak to 11
OPPONENT	LOCATION	DAY	TIME	Listen	Stats	Watch
vs. Eastern Illinois	Taylor Stadium	Tuesday, March 7	4:00 p.m.	KTGR	Stats	SEC Network+

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Mizzou Baseball, ranked No. 26 in this week's College Baseball Newspaper Top 30 and riding its longest winning streak since 2012, will continue its season-long 10-game homestand on Tuesday as it welcomes Eastern Illinois to Taylor Stadium. First pitch is at 4 p.m. and the game will air live on SEC Network+ and on KTGR in the Mid-Missouri area and KTGR.com.
Mizzou is coming off of a series sweep over UIC, a team that had won two of three at then seventh-ranked Vanderbilt one week prior. Mizzou won, 7-2, on Friday night behind a dominant start from junior RHP Tanner Houck. The Tigers then earned a 6-4 win on Saturday behind the relief pitching of freshman LHP T.J. Sikkema. The Sunday finale was an offensive slugfest with the wind blowing straight out at Taylor Stadium. Mizzou build a 10-6 lead on a Trey Harris seventh-inning, three-run homer. But UIC battled back to tie the game in the eighth before freshman OF Kameron Misner launched a 2-0 fastball over the right centerfield fence for the first walk-off hit of his career at any level.
Following the sweep, Mizzou now has its longest win streak since 2012 at 10 games. There have been only 20 winning streaks in program history longer that Mizzou's current 10-game streak. At 10-1 on the year, Mizzou has matched its best 11-game start since 1985 (the 2015 team also opened 10-1). The 1985 team won its first 14 games.
The series sweep last weekend for Mizzou was its first three-game series sweep since April 26-May 1 of last season when the Tigers won all three games against Tennessee at Taylor Stadium.
Mizzou's hot start can be directly linked to the offensive mastermind of first-year head coach Steve Bieser who has Mizzou ranked in the SEC's top three in virtually every offensive category after three weeks of play. Mizzou leads the SEC in doubles and ranks second in batting, slugging, on-base percentage and third in runs and total bases. Mizzou's team OPS after 11 games is .950. What is amazing about Mizzou's team batting average of .340, the second-best mark in the league, is that Mizzou only has two players ranked among the league's top 15 as it truly has been a team approach under Bieser with his pitch recognition program. Among the 10 hitters who meet the minimums, eight are hitting .300 or better while they are all hitting .270 or better. In fact, 10 of Mizzou's top 12 hitters on the year are all hitting above .300.
Mizzou has slugged an SEC-best 33 doubles, led by junior Matt Berler who has six, tied for second-most in the SEC. Junior C Brett Bond has been Mizzou's best hitter this season, ranking sixth in the SEC with his .432 average and fifth with his 19 hits ... He is also fourth with 15 runs scored and leads the team in all three categories … Bond also leads the team in RBI (11), homers (two) and slugging (.659).
Mizzou will send junior RHP Bryce Montes De Oca to the mound on Tuesday as he will make his first start of his collegiate career against the Panthers. The No. 59 prospect nationally coming out of high school, Montes De Oca missed almost all of last season with an arm injury but has returned to form this year, making the transition to a starter during his summer in the Cape Cod League. A big, imposing figure on the mound, MDO can run it up close to 100 MPH and is widely considered one of the top pitching prospects in this year's draft despite only throwing 9.2 innings in his career.

Pitching Matchup

Tuesday: RHP Bryce Montes De Oca (0-0, 13.50 ERA) vs. LHP Logan Beaman (0-0, 8.31 ERA)

Series History

Mizzou leads the all-time series with Eastern Illinois, 7-0. The two teams last met during the 2011 season in a game that was played at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O'Fallon, Mo. Mizzou scored single runs in the seventh and eighth innings of that game and Phil McCormick tossed the final 1.2 innings, striking out three to earn the save. Mizzou got three home runs in that game - one from C Ryan Ampleman, one from INF Eric Garcia and another from Blake Brown.
With Eastern Illinois being in the Ohio Valley Conference, the Panthers of course have a history vs. first-year Mizzou head coach Steve Bieser as the two teams met 12 times in OVC play while Bieser was the head skipper at Southeast Missouri. In all, Bieser went 8-4 against the Panthers in 12 all-time meetings while sweeping the season series a year ago. Bieser's SEMO teams outscored EIU, 129-74, over those 12 games and put up three games of 20 or more runs and six games with double digit run totals. SEMO scored in double figures in every game a year ago, winning 15-1, 12-11 and 20-7.
After going 1-2 against EIU during his first year at SEMO, Bieser went 7-2 over the final three seasons en-route to winning three consecutive Ohio Valley Championships.

We're Going Up Through The Quad To The Gynasium

After winning 10 consecutive games, Mizzou is streaking through its nonconference schedule. With its win streak currently at 10 games, Mizzou is chasing some of the longest win streaks in program history. The current 10-game mark matches the longest by a Tiger team since 2012 when they also won 10 in a row. Should Mizzou push the streak to 11 games Tuesday, it would mark the longest since the 2008 team won 14 straight. Below is a breakdown of the longest win streaks in school history:

Consecutive Wins	Years Accomplished
19	1964
16	1981, 1917
14	2008, 2007, 1985
13	2003, 1998, 1978, 1952, 1916
12	1979 (twice), 1977, 1974
11	2005, 2004, 1958, 1954, 1939
10	2017, 2012, 1998, 1977, 1963, 1956, 1906

There have been only 20 win streaks in Mizzou's history longer than Mizzou's current 10-game streak. The school record for longest winning streak was set by the 1964 team which finished as the College World Series National Runner-Up that year. Mizzou would need to win the final seven games of its homestand and the first two games of the SEC-opening series at Alabama to reach that streak.
What makes Mizzou's 10-game winning streak even more impressive is that it has been winning games in a variety of different ways, including finding a way to win close games. Of the 10 wins, six of the games have been decided by two or fewer runs, including four one-run wins and a pair of walk-off wins, including Sunday's 11-10 win in which freshman OF Kameron Misner hit a walk-off solo shot in the ninth.

We Were Merely Freshmen

Through three weeks of play, a trio of Mizzou freshmen have established themselves as stalwarts on Mizzou's roster and have been a hue part of Mizzou's success. OF Kameron Misner, INF Chris Cornelius and LHP T.J. Sikkema have been key cogs for Mizzou and their contributions were fully on display last weekend in the series win over UIC.
Misner of course was the hero of Sunday's game, belting a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning on a 2-0 fastball to clinch an 11-10 win an a three-game series sweep. Misner is now tied for the team lead with two homers and is hitting .354 with nine RBI and 25 total bases. He also leads Mizzou with four steals and stole home last weekend as well. He has hit in the three-hole in six games this season with Mizzou winning all six.
Cornelius has started and played in 10 games this season, seeing time at both middle infield spots. He is hitting .270 with two doubles and eight RBI and tallied his first collegiate homer run last week.
Sikkema has been Mizzou's top reliever this spring and leads all SEC freshmen in ERA (0.55) and strikeouts (26). We outline his dominance later in the notes.

Getting Offensive

The story of the season for Mizzou so far has been the offense. First-year head coach Steve Bieser, whose teams at Southeast Missouri consistently ranked in the top 10 nationally offensively, has Mizzou on a similar trajectory. Bieser and hitting coach Dillon Lawson rely on a pitch recognition program that they have instilled in the Mizzou players since they arrived on campus. The coaching staff has also introduced a lot of new, advanced technology to help hitters, and the results are seen in the stats. After three weeks of play, the results are easy to see as Mizzou ranks in the top four in the SEC in virtually every major offensive stat category, including an SEC-best 33 doubles, sixth-most in the nation. Below is a complete look at the stats and where Mizzou ranks:

Stat	Total	SEC Rank	National Rank
Doubles	33	1	6
OBP	.433	2	11
Batting	.340	2	9
Hits	131	3	19
Walks	.60	4	31

To offer some perspective on Mizzou's offensive production, Mizzou last hit above .300 as a team in 2008, hitting .301 that season. In fact, Mizzou has hit above .300 just 25 times since 1950. The Tigers are averaging 11.91 hits per game and have double-digit hits in eight of 11 games. That puts Mizzou on pace for 667 hits during the 56-game regular season schedule. The school record is 643, set in 1988.

Double Trouble

A huge key to Mizzou's offense has been its ability to slug extra-base hits, highlighted by an SEC-best 33 doubles. It took Mizzou 23 games to hit that many doubles a year ago. Mizzou has hit a double in 10 of 11 games this season and in eight consecutive games. Mizzou slugged a season-high seven doubles against Eastern Michigan on Feb. 18 in a 27-run outburst. Seven different Tigers have at least three doubles with junior Matt Berler leading the way with six as the doubles have been a full team effort. Mizzou's OPS (on base plus slugging percentage) after two weeks is .950 – to put that mark into perspective, .900 or higher in considered elite for a player, not to mention an entire team putting up a combined mark above .900.
While it is important to take into account the sample size so far, Mizzou is averaging 3.0 doubles per game this season through the first eight. That puts the team on pace for 168 doubles, which would be by far the most in program history. The record is 138 set in 1999 near the tail end of the gorilla ball era.

Comparing the Offense

While some could argue that Mizzou's offensive numbers are inflated by a perceived 'lack of competition' it is hard to argue when comparing the numbers to where they have been over the last several seasons. Even with playing a pair of Power 5 programs this year, including facing preseason All-American LHP Seth Romero and No. 25 Houston, Mizzou's numbers are far better than they were a year ago through the first 11 games, facing very similar competition.

Stat	2016	2017	% Increase
Doubles	19	33	73.7
XBHs	27	46	71.4
Runs	66	93	40.9
Hits	97	131	35.1
Slugging	.385	.517	34.3
Batting	.272	.340	25.0
Walks	52	60	15.4
OBP	.380	.433	13.9

Bullpen on Parade

While all the rage has been Mizzou's offense, it's hard to argue against the machine that has been Mizzou's bullpen. Despite a rough outing under windy conditions on Sunday, Mizzou's bullpen owns a combined 2.33 ERA in 46.1 innings of work this season. Mizzou's bullpen has allowed just 35 hits over those 46.1 innings and has struck out 62 batters against just 16 walks (3.875 K-BB ratio). The bullpen is limiting teams to a .190 batting average this season.

Down With the Sikkemas

A key reason for Mizzou's success in the bullpen has been the emergence of freshman LHP T.J. Sikkema. Described as having electric stuff by Mizzou head coach Steve Bieser, Sikkema has arguably been the best reliever in the SEC this season. Sikkema was lights out in week two as he was named Kleberg Bank College Classic MVP after earning a win and save over a pair of Power 5 opponents, including nationally-ranked Houston when he tossed a 2.2 inning save in a 4-2 win, the first save of his career. He then earned the win on Sunday against Illinois as he threw the final 4.1 shutout innings, scattering just three hits while matching his career-high with eight strikeouts. On the week, he went 7.0 innings and allowed just three hits with 11 Ks against just one walk.
He continued that spectacular pitching last weekend against UIC, tossing 4.0 shutout innings while striking out seven against no walks while scattering only two hits. He now owns a 16.0 inning shutout streak with 26 strikeouts and just nine hits allowed in that span.
Sikkema now leads all SEC freshmen in ERA (0.55) and is sixth overall. He also ranks 12th in the SEC in opponent batting while his 12 strikeouts looking are also a league-best. He is 25th nationally in strikeouts as well which is third in the SEC. He has struck out 26 of the 46 batters he has faced this season.
On the year, Sikkema owns a 14.33 K/9 average and a 13-1 strikeout-walk ratio.

For all the latest on Mizzou Baseball, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team on Twitter (@MizzouBaseball) and like the team on Facebook and Instagram (Mizzou Baseball and missouri_baseball, respectively).

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