Nick King photo

Steve Gray, center, is congratulated by Missouri teammates Russell LaFleur (2), Andrew Thigpen (3), Dan Pietroburgo and Aaron Senne after his two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth beat Creighton 5-4 yesterday on Simmons Field.

When Missouri baseball Coach Tim Jamieson scanned his bench for a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning yesterday, the old rule of thumb - lefty vs. righty or righty vs. lefty - didn’t apply. The guy on the mound, Creighton’s Pat Venditte, was wearing a custom-made glove with six fingers and two thumbs, which allowed him to pitch with either hand without swapping mitts.

How to deal with a switch pitcher? This was a tricky one.

Jamieson summoned the left-handed Steve Gray. A few moments later, he was mighty glad he did. Gray swatted the ball over the left-field fence for a two-run homer that gave the Tigers a 5-4 victory on Simmons Field.

"In that situation with Steve, with the wind blowing out to left field, it’s a good matchup for him," Jamieson said. "He’s not great against lefties, but he at least gives us a chance to hit the ball out of the ballpark. … That’s his natural swing, to left-center."

As he approached the plate, Gray wasn’t greedy enough to imagine a home run. Dan Pietroburgo began the inning by reaching base on an errant throw by Creighton third baseman Steve Winkelmann. Kurt Calvert pinch-ran for Pietroburgo and advanced to second on Andrew Thigpen’s sacrifice bunt.

Gray just wanted to tie the game with a single. As a platoon player at first base, he rarely faces left-handed pitching. And Venditte was an almost unhittable All-American last year, although his ERA is a modest 3.95 this season.

"From what I’d heard, he was a completely different pitcher from each side," Gray said. "Right-handed, he throws more over the top and a lot more fastballs. Lefty, he drops down and throws a lot of those sliders. That’s all I saw that whole at-bat, so that’s what I was sitting on 3-1. And that’s what I got."

The 15th-ranked Tigers (32-16) found a way to win a game the Bluejays (30-17) dominated for the first seven innings. It was Creighton’s fourth one-run loss to a ranked team this season.

"We had opportunities to score a couple more runs," Creighton Coach Ed Servais said. "We had guys at second base a couple times with the right guys up and less than two outs and couldn’t get them in. When you’re the home team, you have the advantage. You’ve got to have a little larger lead going into the ninth inning than one run."

The Bluejays’ leadoff man, Robbie Knight, had only one career home run before smacking two in the first two innings off MU starter Ian Berger. Knight went 5 for 5 with three RBI and three runs.

Creighton starter Greg Hellhake held the Tigers to one run in five innings, and seldom-used reliever Jack VanLeur threw two scoreless innings. It wasn’t until Venditte entered the game that Missouri rallied from a 4-1 deficit.

With two outs and a man on in the eighth inning, switch-hitting Trevor Coleman came to the plate. The pitcher has to choose his arm and stick with it for the whole at-bat, and Coleman saw Servais signal to Venditte to throw left-handed. That was Coleman’s cue to grab his right-handed bat. He uses a 34-inch bat as a righty and a 33-incher as a lefty.

Coleman had hit only one home run all season - and Venditte had only given up one while pitching left-handed - but the sophomore catcher whacked a two-run shot to left field that narrowed the deficit to 4-3.

Winning pitcher Scooter Hicks (3-1) held the Bluejays in check for two innings, setting up Gray’s heroics.

It was a welcome victory for the Tigers, who entered with a 3-7 record in one-run games, including Sunday’s 4-3 loss to Kansas State.

"We’ve been losing a lot of close ballgames lately, and we needed one to go the other way for once," said Gray, who had never hit a walk-off homer at any level. "Instead of losing at the end, come back at the end. It’s big for our team morale."

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