COLUMBIA, MO. • In the season’s penultimate Southeastern Conference series, Missouri baseball coach Steve Bieser experimented with his pitching rotation, turning shutdown reliever T.J. Sikkema into a starter for the first time this year. For a while Friday against South Carolina, the freshman lefthander, the hardest pitcher to hit in the SEC this season, might have left Bieser second-guessing his decision to stash him in the bullpen through the season’s first three months.
Sikkema, who came into Friday’s game leading the SEC in opponent’s batting average (.172) and ranked fourth in wins (seven), stifled the Gamecocks’ through the first four innings before things unraveled in a 4-3 loss.