IBTIT: Tennessee Vols vs. Missouri Tigers Baseball Series Preview (April 25, 26, 27)

We smash ol' baseballs, Josh

Sandwiched between last weekend’s huge series win in Lexington and another big series next weekend in Gainesville, Tennessee finds itself against arguably the SEC’s worst team: Missouri. Is this a trap series for the Vols? Or can UT keep their focus and sweep the Tigers?

Recently: Tennessee visited Kentucky last weekend and handed the league-leading Wildcats twice as many losses as they’d suffered in SEC play all year, winning the series (3-5, 9-4, 13-11) with an onslaught of homeruns (10 over the weekend, including three by Christian Moore on Sunday alone). The Vols also won their midweek game against Western Carolina on Tuesday, pushing UT’s record to 34-7, 12-6 in SEC play.

Missouri, meanwhile, lost their series against LSU (1-12, 8-7, 2-6). The Tigers have just one SEC series win this season, having swept Florida earlier this month. Mizzou beat Missouri State in the midweek, but the Tigers have struggled out-of-conference as well, with a 13-11 OOC record against a non-conference record whose strength of schedule is considered to be in the bottom third nationally.

Previously on Vols vs. Tigers: Tennessee trails in the all-time series against Tony Vitello’s alma mater 13-17, thanks in part to the Tigers’ sweep of UT in the first series of 2023. It put the Vols in a hole they had to spend the rest of the season digging out of, and probably cost UT the ability to host in the postseason last year. Tennessee this weekend will be looking to get on the right side of a 7-8 series deficit in games played at home.

Preview Graphic:

To put it plainly: Missouri is a bad baseball team. Jackson Lovich, their best hitter, has a .282 batting average. No Missouri player ranks in the SEC top 20 for any significant offensive category, with the exception of SS Drew Culbertson’s 14 stolen bases (14th most in the SEC) and 2B Trevor Austin, who has been hit by a pitch 15 times (2nd most—Mizzou is among the league leaders in being hit by pitches, for what it’s worth). Pitching tells the same story. Only RHP Carter Rustad, with 43 strikeouts and a .249 opponents’ batting average, ranks among the SEC’s top 20—and even he has a 4-5 record and 6.07 ERA.

Tennessee should win this series—honestly they should sweep. It would be a shocking result if Mizzou were to come out of the weekend victorious. But it wouldn’t be the first time, since the Tigers stunned Florida just a few weeks ago. Looking back at the 2023 season, it’s shocking that a Missouri team which ended up 10-20 in the SEC swept the CWS-bound Vols. In hindsight, that series had more to do with Tennessee than it did with Missouri, and if the Vols fall this weekend that will be true again. The test for UT starting Thursday is keeping focus against a bad ball club after beating Kentucky last week and looking ahead to Jac Caglianone and the Gators next weekend.