ST. LOUIS — Illinois baseball head coach Dan Hartleb had a talk with his team in the Busch Stadium dugout after Wednesday’s 5-4 loss to Missouri.

Seven walks and a hit batsman are the kinds of things that keep coaches up at night, especially Hartleb who stresses fundaments to his team almost ad nauseam. Four of Missouri’s five runs were batters who were given a free pass, two of which came with two outs.

“We just have to be better fundamentally,” Hartleb said when asked what he told the team in the meeting. “You can’t walk guys and we walked way too many of their hitters tonight and we put ourselves in a jam.”

Illinois (18-13) fell to the Missouri (18-14) for the second time in the “Battle at Busch.” This was a lot of the players first time competing in the game, which was canceled last year due to weather.

No one made an excuse of being caught up in the venue for why they didn’t perform; their coach certainly wouldn’t have allowed it.

“It had nothing to do with the field,” Hartleb said. “It just had to do with some guys and the way they went about their business. A couple guys didn’t compete very well.”

It didn’t take long for both teams to settle into the game.

Missouri took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first, capitalizing on an errant pickoff throw to first base and scoring on a single to right field.

The Illini would answer in the home half of the first with a single by center fielder Willie Argo. He promptly swiped second, and Justin Parr then drove a double to left center field, scoring Argo. Brandon Hohl made it a third straight hit by the Illini with a single to drive Parr home. Illinois added one more run in the inning to take a 3-1 lead after one.

The Illini struggled to score runs against Missouri starting pitcher Brett Graves after the first inning. Graves came into the game with a 7.13 ERA, but held the Illini to three runs on seven hits in 6-plus innings.

Missouri would answer right back in the second with a leadoff double that came around to score and cut the lead in half 3-2.

The Tigers continued to put the pressure on the Illini in the third, taking advantage of free passes by Chmielewski. Missouri took advantage of a two-out walk and hit batter to tie the game at three with a single.

Chmielewski lasted only three innings, surrendering three runs and left the game tied for Luke Joyce, who struggled with his command all night long. He pitched himself into trouble in the fourth, and Missouri retook the lead on a two-run single after Joyce walked the bases loaded. He walked four in his two innings of relief.

“Just trying to locate a fastball,” Joyce said. “I wasn’t trying to do anything special, but I just couldn’t repeat the delivery and work both sides of the plate. Falling behind guys 2-0, 2-1, it puts them in position to hit and the hitters love that.”

Missouri had their chances to break the game open with all the walks, but left 14 runners on base.

Once Graves was pulled from the game, Illinois started to put a dent in the lead. A ball in the dirt allowed Reid Roper to score an unearned run in the seventh. But the same magic that the Cardinals used to comeback in the World Series wasn’t left for the Illini. The final score was 5-4, but the game wasn’t as close as the box score indicated.

“We can’t afford too many more losses,” center fielder Willie Argo said. “I don’t feel like we played our best.”

“We only lost by one, but we definitely didn’t play well tonight,” Joyce said. “It was a pretty rough game.”