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The start of the 2013 baseball season has been a struggle for the Missouri Tigers. Mizzou has been swept by Southern Miss and Memphis in back-to-back weekends, and have been outscored 35-11 in the six losses.
Missouri has been anemic offensively, hitting only .190 as a team and scoring less than 2 runs per game. In fact, catcher Dylan Kelly is the only Tiger hitting above .300. Kelly has been the only bright spot in Mizzou’s lineup. He’s hitting .412 with a .444 on-base percentage.
3B Keaton Steele has a team high 4 RBI’s, but he’s only hitting .222. The rest of the Tigers have been bad and that’s an understatement. Missouri has 9 players that have started at least two games that are hitting under .250.
Missouri’s pitching staff hasn’t been great, but it’s been good enough to have a better record than 0-6. The Tigers have given up 35 total runs, but only 28 of those runs have been earned. Mizzou’s defense has committed 12 errors so far in the early going, which certainly doesn’t help the pitching staff.
Brett Graves has been the best starter through the first two weekends. Graves has an 0-1 record but a 3.18 ERA in 11.1 innings. He also has 10 strikeouts and only 3 walks. Teams are only hitting .159 against Graves.
The 2013 “Friday Night Starter” for Missouri is Rob Zastryzny. Zastryzny has struggled this year in the ace role. He has posted an 0-2 record with a 6.25 ERA in his first two starts.
Friday, March 1, Missouri will play their first game in Columbia. The Tigers will host Northwestern March 1-3. Northwestern is off to a 4-2 start this season.