Vanderbilt’s Kumar Rocker gave up the most hits he has all season, but it wasn’t enough for Missouri baseball to beat the top-ranked Commodores, as the Tigers fell 10-2.

Going into Thursday’s game, there were questions on how Missouri (8-13) would fare against the No. 1 Commodores. The Tigers were batting .252 and had been outscored by their opponents 146-112.

Missouri hitters were not intimidated by Vanderbilt’s gilded ace. Early on, the Tigers were aggressive in at-bats. The confidence paid off in the second inning, when, after Chad McDaniel singled and Luke Mann walked, Ross Lovich knocked in the first run of the game, helped out by a throwing error from Vanderbilt first baseman Dominic Keegan.

Early on, the Tigers were aggressive in at-bats. The confidence paid off in the second inning. After Chad McDaniel singled and Luke Mann walked, Ross Lovich knocked in the first run of the game, helped out by a throwing error from Vanderbilt first baseman Dominic Keegan.

Missouri’s bats did as well as any team this season against Rocker. The Tigers’ two runs tied South Carolina as the most scored against the junior in 2021, and Missouri had five hits against Rocker.

“I thought we had a really good game plan going in and really kind of knew his tendencies had some pretty good at bats against him,” Missouri coach Steve Bieser said. “He found his way out of some trouble at times and we couldn’t come up with a big hit but I felt like we did a pretty decent job against him.”

The ’Dores fared even better in the box.

Vanderbilt came right back in the third inning, with two runs on three singles after Missouri starter Spencer Miles managed two outs. The Commodores went up 2-1 and didn’t look back.

Vanderbilt picked up two more runs in the fourth, continuing the Commodores’ trend of scoring in the middle innings. Before the series in Columbia, Vanderbilt outscored opponents 58-12 in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings. Jayson Gonzalez added another run to that total when he took Miles deep to lead off the sixth.

When Miles continued to struggle, Missouri coach Steve Bieser opted for left-hander Trae Robertson out of the pen. Two batters later, C.J. Rodriguez sent a rocket over the left field fence to put Vanderbilt further in the lead 8-1.

Missouri picked up a second run in the sixth with a Mann double, but the Tigers would need much more than that to threaten Vanderbilt’s comfortable lead.

The double was Mann’s second hit of the night, and the third time he was on base counting a walk. Mann had Missouri’s only RBI and was the only Tiger to hit safely twice against the Vanderbilt staff. The performance raises his season batting average to .203.

Rocker exited the game after the sixth, and sophomore Sam Hliboki took over from there. Hliboki held the Tigers scoreless in the final three frames.

Meanwhile, Vandy added another run in the seventh and eighth inning to push the score to the final of 10-2.

The Commodores had 16 hits against Tigers pitching, including 12 singles. The other four hits came via a double and three home runs. Jayson Rodriguez led the team in hits and RBI with three apiece.

Jack Leiter is slated to start for Vanderbilt on Friday, and the sophomore has as much hype as Rocker, coming off a career-high 16-strikeout no-hitter against South Carolina.

“There’s a lot of work to be put in,” Mann said. “We’re going put in that work and hopefully have a different outcome tomorrow.”