Baseball Weekend Preview: LSU @ Mizzou

So, last weekend, LSU took two of three games against Vanderbilt and played well in every game. That was good.

Then the midweek happened. LSU lost to McNeese St, their third midweek loss of the season. LSU then put in a decent offensive showing against Grambling, but the rest of the game was such a disaster that I won't even bother with it. Basically, this team has me all kinds of confused right now.

Anyways, LSU travels to Columbia, MO to take on the other other newish Tigers of Mizzou.

Missouri Tigers

Record: 20-15 overall, 4-8 SEC, 5th in the Eastern Division

Recent Form: Took 2 of 3 from Auburn, Lost to Missouri State in the midweek, took 2 of 3 from Arkansas

Rank: N/A

RPI: 111

ISR: 108

On paper, Missouri is one of the weakest teams in the SEC. To put their RPI and ISR into perspective, McNeese has an RPI of 80 and ISR of 60. A series loss to Mizzou would be pretty catastrophic for any chance LSU might have of hosting a regional. That said, Missouri has been playing really well the last couple of weeks. Taking 2 of 3 at Arkansas and against Auburn means they'll be coming into this weekend with a good bit of confidence.

Mizzou Bats

Mizzou reminds me a bit of LSU's offense this year. They haven't put up a ton of runs and sometimes they struggle to get hits consistently. There are some good bats in this lineup. Ring and Lavy will challenge Lange and Poche and will probably get some good hits throughout the weekend. Another person to watch that isn't on this list is Shane Benes. He leads Mizzou with four home runs this season, but his average is fairly low at 0.233. He doesn't get a lot of hits, but can take a ball deep if he gets a hold of it.

Mizzou Arms

It appears that Mizzou has at least had some pretty consistent starting pitching. Houck and McClain won't blow anybody away, but they appear to be consistent enough starters in the SEC. Both guys are good at limiting walks, and they consistently get strikeouts. Plassmeyer, the Sunday starter this weekend, has had an up and down year and is giving up a fair number of hits.

Should you be worried?

Somewhat. Mizzou lacks the outright quality of teams LSU has already played, but they can play Jekyll and Hyde like LSU. They'll stink up the joint one night, getting one run or no runs then score eight runs the next day. They are just wildly inconsistent.

What's the weather going to be like?

Best Old Logo I found on Google Image Search

I've got two from the Mizzou archives (http://muarchives.missouri.edu/exh_tigers.html#2)

Words fail me.

Prediction

LSU takes two of three.