COLUMBIA, Mo. – University of Missouri baseball returns to Taylor Stadium to host new Southeastern Conference foe No. 7 Texas for a three-game league series this weekend.
The Tigers and Longhorns will square off in a 6 p.m. contest Friday to open the weekend, before matching up again Saturday (4 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.) to wrap up the series.
The first two contests of this weekend’s series will be streamed live by SEC Network+, with Noah Reed and Dylan Kelly calling the action. Additionally, Sunday’s series finale will be televised live nationally on SEC Network, with Victor Rojas and Mike Rooney handling broadcast duties. All Mizzou baseball contests in 2025 will be produced by the Tiger Radio Network, with each of this weekend’s contests slated for radio broadcast locally in Columbia via KTGR AM/FM (105.1 FM/100.5 FM/1580 AM) and streamed via the Varsity Network app (by searching ‘Missouri’), with Tex Little and Matt Michaels handling broadcast duties.
Mizzou baseball single-game and 2025 season tickets are on sale now. Fans can purchase season tickets by calling the ticket office at 1-800-CAT-PAWS or by visiting MUTigers.com.
PROMOTIONS
• Friday, March 28 (6 p.m.) – St. Louis Cardinals Night & Ticket Raffle / SEC Poster Series Giveaway
• Saturday, March 29 (4 p.m.) – Youth Baseball Night / Mini Bat Giveaway (first 350 kids)
• Sunday, March 30 (1 p.m.) – Healthcare Appreciation Day / Kids Run the Bases
PITCHING PROBABLES
• Game 1 – Friday, March 28 (6 p.m.) – LHP Ian Lohse (Mizzou) vs. LHP Luke Harrison (Texas)
• Game 2 – Saturday, March 29 (4 p.m.) – RHP Kaden Jacobi (Mizzou) vs. LHP Jared Spencer (Texas)
• Game 3 – Sunday, March 30 (1 p.m.) – TBD (Mizzou) vs. TBD (Texas)
SERIES HISTORY
• Texas holds a 34-30 all-time series advantage over the Tigers entering this weekend’s matchup.
• MU has won its last five meetings with the Longhorns dating back to the two clubs’ final Big 12 Conference series in 2012.
• The Tigers have won four of their last five regular-season home series with Texas, going 9-6 vs. the Longhorns at Taylor Stadium since 2004
• Mizzou has won five of eight overall home series with UT going back to their first Big 12 matchup in Columbia in 1998.
• The Tigers pulled out a 6-5 walk-off victory over UT in the most recent game in the series on Feb. 18, 2023 in Arlington, Texas.
• Mizzou took two out of three contests from the Horns in their final Big 12 regular-season series (April 4-6, 2012, in Columbia), as well as three of four games overall in 2012.
SCOUTING MISSOURI
• Missouri is coming off a 23-32 last spring in head coach Kerrick Jackson‘s first season at the helm.
• Jackson, who earned his 100th career coaching victory February 15 vs. UConn, was named the 15th head coach in Mizzou history in June 2023, returning to Columbia to lead a program for which he served as an assistant coach from 2011-15 under Mizzou Hall of Fame head coach (and current pitching coach) Tim Jamieson.
• Mizzou is off to a 9-14 start to the season after posting an 11-9 win over Illinois on Tuesday.
• The Tigers return four position starters from last season, led by junior 3B Jackson Lovich, who batted .287 with 10 homers and 35 RBIs, while ranking second in the SEC in triples (4); the Overland Park, Kan., native has been red-hot at the plate, hitting .475 (28-for-59) with five home runs and 19 RBIs, as well as hits in 14 of his last 15 games, since Feb. 28.
• Junior INF/OF Brock Daniels brings a six-game hit streak into Friday’s contest; he logged a season-high four RBIs last Saturday vs. Ole Miss.
• Sophomore C/1B Mateo Serna has delivered a strong season-opening stretch, sharing team-leading totals of six home runs and 25 RBIs with Lovich, entering play this weekend.
• Sophomore OF Kaden Peer has homered three times in the Tigers’ first 23 games to already surpass his 2024 season total, while also going 7-for-7 in stolen base attempts to start the new campaign.
• Additionally, newcomers OF Pierre Seals, OF Cameron Benson, OF Brady Picarelli and 1B/OF Cayden Nicoletto have made an immediate impact on the Tigers’ offensive fortunes; Nicoletto, in particular, has been pivotal for MU, logging the team’s second-best batting mark (.373) to date.
• On the mound, junior RHP Brock Lucas returns after going 4-0 with a 3.63 ERA in 18 relief appearances last spring.
• Graduate LHP Ian Lohse (39 K’s in 34.1 IP) is enjoying his best season as a Tiger after registering at least six strikeouts in all but one of his six starts to date, including a career-best eight punchouts in last Friday’s series opener vs. Ole Miss.
• LHP Kadden Drew and redshirt freshman LHP Wil Libbert have combined for four mound victories and 48.0 innings thus far.
• RHP Ben Smith has logged nine scoreless outings in 12 appearances to date, while RHPs Kaden Jacobi, Xavier Lovett and PJ Green have provided solid relief work for the Tigers as well.
QUICK HITS
• Mizzou pitching has fanned 203 batters in 198.0 innings this season, including a total of 117 K’s over its 12 home contests.
• Mizzou has recorded four 15-hit performances to surpass its 2024 season total of three, as well as 13 double-digit hit totals, in just 23 contests this spring.
• 1B/OF Cayden Nicoletto has logged a pair of four-hit performances at Taylor Stadium, first doing so March 2 vs. Evansville, before repeating the feat March 8 vs. Binghamton; the senior transfer also has a trio of three-hit games to his credit.
• Led by OF Kaden Peer with seven steals in seven attempts, the Tigers’ running game has netted 40 steals in 47 attempts this season; MU ranks third in the SEC with a 1.74 steals-per-game average, which projects the Tigers to steal 96 bases over their 55-game regular-season slate; that total would represent the No. 2 season total in program history, trailing only the 2019 Tigers’ 101 steals.
• Peer has reached base safely in 16-straight contests since Feb. 23, marking the longest such streak by a Tiger since Jackson Lovich reached safely in 18 consecutive games to start the 2024 season.
• Lovich enters Friday’s series opener with a streak of four consecutive multi-hit and multi-RBI performances; since last Friday’s series opener with Ole Miss, the junior has hit a blistering .579 (11-for-19) with three home runs and 13 RBIs.
• In MU’s first 23 games of the season, 22 different players have made their debuts in Black and Gold.
• Mizzou’s catching combination of Jedier Hernandez and Mateo Serna combined to throw out 15 would-be base-stealers last spring and the duo has already teamed up to nail nine baserunners in the Tigers’ first 23 games this season.
SCOUTING TEXAS
• Under the direction of first-year head coach Jim Schlossnagle, the Longhorns enter the week 20-3 overall and tied atop the Southeastern Conference standings with a 5-1 league mark.
• The Longhorns enter the weekend as one of the nation’s top slugging offenses, sporting a .533 team slugging percentage for the season; UT ranks 22nd nationally in that category, as well as 26th among all Division I offenses in home runs per game (1.57).
• INF Ethan Mendoza is Texas’ top hitter (.400), while C Ryan Galvan leads the Longhorns with nine home runs and 25 RBIs.
• Additionally, OF Max Belyeu (.363 BA), INF Adrian Rodriguez (.330 BA, 8-for-8 SB) and INF Jalin Flores form a prominent threat in UT lineup, combining for 15 home runs on the season.
• On the mound, UT ranks 12th nationally in team ERA (3.39), thanks to a staff that permits just 7.19 hits per nine innings – good for 13th among all Division I pitching staffs.
• The left-handed duo of Jared Spencer and Luke Harrison pace the UT rotation, combining for 70 strikeouts on the season to date; Spencer has fanned 43 to rank ninth in the SEC, while opponents are batting just .202 against Harrison this spring.
• RHP Ruger Riojas has been a versatile weapon for UT as well, with a conference-best five victories, as well as 26 strikeouts in 26.0 innings of work to his credit.
• LHP Dylan Volantis ranks third in the SEC and 14th nationally in saves (5) to anchor the back end of the Texas bullpen.
LAST TIME WE MET
• Dylan Leach’s one-out double in the bottom of the ninth inning drove home the decisive run for Mizzou in a gritty, 6-5 walk-off decision over the Longhorns on Feb. 18, 2023 at the College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas.
• After the Longhorns battled back from an early 4-1 deficit, Leach lined a 2-0 offering from UT’s Sam Walbridge into the left field corner, bringing a hard-charging Hank Zeisler all the way around from first to set off a raucous on-field celebration by the Tigers.
• The victory marked the fifth straight for Mizzou in its series with Texas, dating back to the 2012 season.
• Mizzou out-hit the Longhorns by a 14-5 margin, paced by three-hit performances from Luke Mann and Cam Chick. Mann belted his first long ball of the season — a two-run shot off the right-field foul pole — to help stake the Tigers to an early three-run cushion.
• The Tiger pitching staff chipped in with another strong effort, as lefty Ian Lohse fanned four UT hitters in the first two innings, before handing the ball off to his bullpen. Three relievers — Daniel Wissler, Austin Troesser and Rorik Maltrud — joined forces to limit the Horns to three hits while striking out six over the final 5 1/3 innings.
THE UN-FRIENDLY CONFINES
• Southeastern Conference foes have struggled to make themselves feel at home inside Taylor Stadium, the league’s northernmost baseball venue.
• Since 2019, the Tigers have made life difficult for their SEC brethren over their first two home series of the conference season, logging a cumulative .567 winning percentage in those 10 three-game sets.
• Over the last three seasons alone, the Tigers have posted a total of seven home victories over four different College World Series qualifiers, including sweeps of Tennessee (2023) and Florida (2024):
- March 26, 2022 vs. No. 3 Arkansas (7-5)
- March 17, 2023 vs. No. 4 Tennessee (9-1)
- March 19, 2023 vs. No. 4 Tennessee (7-4)
- March 19, 2023 vs. No. 4 Tennessee (7-1)
- March 23, 2024 vs. No. 21 Kentucky (2-1)
- April 5, 2024 vs. No. 6 Florida (2-1)
- April 6, 2024 vs. No. 6 Florida (4-3)
- April 7, 2024 vs. No. 6 Florida (11-10)
• Despite making its first visit to Columbia as an SEC foe, this weekend’s opponent is no stranger to Taylor, with Texas having played eight previous conference series against the Tigers as members of the Big 12 Conference from 1998-2012.
• Like their new league partners, Texas has found the Taylor terrain to be rocky as well, with Mizzou claiming four of its last five home series vs. the Longhorns (2004-12) and five of the eight previous series in Columbia overall (since 1998).
• Even during one of the more successful periods in program history for the six-time national champion Longhorns, Mizzou claimed five of six meetings with UT at Taylor from 2004-06, while Texas was racking up 155 total victories, two Big 12 titles, two CWS appearances, including a national championship over the same three-year stretch.
• Notably, UT Hall of Fame head coach Augie Garrido — the second-winningest coach in NCAA history with 1,975 victories, 15 CWS appearances and five national championships on his resume — went just 12-12 at Taylor during his tenure as the Longhorns bench boss.
HOME COOKIN’
• In contrast, the Tigers have found the conditions at Taylor Stadium much to their liking over their first 12 home games of the 2025 season.
• MU has hit .325 with 136 hits, 16 homers and 99 runs scored (8.3 rpg.) over its first 12 home games.
• INF Jackson Lovich leads the way with a .489 batting mark at Taylor this season, including at least one hit in each of his last 11 home games (since Feb. 28).
• 1B/OF Cayden Nicoletto has been hot at home as well, boasting a .413 average in his 12 games at Taylor, including a pair of four-hit games and a grand slam.
• Nicoletto was one of six Tigers to hit better than .400 for the week of Feb. 24-March 2, three of whom posted four-hit performances or better (Cameron Benson and Brady Picarelli).
• Last year, the Tigers hit .285 at Taylor Stadium as a team, averaging 7.8 runs per contest at home.
• In its last 48 home games since May 2, 2023, Mizzou has flourished offensively at Taylor, hitting 74 total home runs and averaging 8.4 runs per outing at home.
SHOW-ME STATE TO THE SHOW
• With Major League Baseball kicking off its 2025 season this week, five former MU baseball standouts earned spots on Opening Day rosters.
• Tiger legend RHP Max Scherzer (2004-06) will begin his 18th Major League season this spring after signing an offseason free agent deal with Toronto.
• Scherzer claimed his second World Series title in 2023, helping the Texas Rangers to their first world championship.
• RHP Tanner Houck (2015-17) turned in his best season as a professional in 2024, logging nine wins, a 3.12 ERA and 137 strikeouts for the Boston Red Sox..
• RHP Pete Fairbanks (2013-15), a ninth-round choice of the Rangers in 2015, has recorded 48 saves for the Tampa Bay Rays over the last two seasons and 63 for his MLB career — the most ever by a Mizzou product.
• Fairbanks welcomed fellow Tiger alum OF Kameron Misner (2017-19) to Tampa late in the 2024 season. Misner, a first-round MLB Draft pick of the Miami Marlins in 2019, made his big league debut with the Rays.
• Additionally, RHP Kyle Gibson (2007-09) signed to the Baltimore Orioles’ 40-man roster as a free agent on March 22. A 2009 first-round MLB Draft selection, Gibson brings a big league career total of 112 mound victories into the 2025 season.
GOING STREAKING
• Several Tigers bring notable streaks into Friday’s series opener, led by six-game hit streaks for INF/OF Brock Daniels (since March 14) and OF Cameron Benson (since Feb. 16); Daniels has hit .320 (8-for-25) during his streak, while Benson has gone 10-for-24 (.417) over the course of his hot stretch.
• Additionally, OF Kaden Peer has reached base safely in 16 consecutive games going back to Feb. 23, going 6-for-6 in stolen base attempts over the same span.
• Peer’s streak marks the longest by a Tiger since INF Jackson Lovich reached in 18-straight games to start the 2024 campaign (Feb. 16-March 15).
• Lovich has reached safely in 15-straight contests (since Feb. 28) as well, while INF Trey Lawrence has reached in 11-consecutive games and both Gehrig Goldbeck and Tyler Macon have reached in 10-straight for the Tigers.
• Additionally, Lovich recorded the longest hit streak by a Tiger so far this season with a 10-game streak, Feb. 28-March 14, over which he batted .459 (17-for-37).
• OF/1B Cayden Nicoletto recorded a nine-game hit streak (March 1-9) as did C/1B Mateo Serna (Feb. 22-March 8).
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