Alabama Baseball Splits Saturday Doubleheader at Auburn, Drops Series

If the No. 8 Alabama baseball team were to think on what might have changed the course of its weekend series on the road against No. 16 Auburn, its minds might wander to the starting pitching.

The Crimson Tide (27-6, 7-5 SEC) won the first game of a Saturday doubleheader 6-5 and lost the second 7-5, claiming a conference game in hostile territory despite none of the weekend's three starters toeing the slab in the fifth inning. Two of them did not make it past the second.

"Long day of baseball today. I will never fault the toughness and fight of this group. They show up with that every day. A lot of maturity shown in the early game today, down one going into the ninth and fighting our way to a big win," Alabama coach Rob Vaughn said.

In Saturday's opener, the teams effectively traded runs until Crimson Tide shortstop Justin Lebron hit his 14th home run of the season in the top of the ninth inning to give the visitors a one-run lead. Its only previous lead in the contest had evaporated on the first pitch of the bottom of the seventh, when second baseman Chris Rembert hit a solo home run off JT Blackwood to make it 4-4.

Lebron overcame Plainsman Park's left-field wall in the effort, and that two-run swing turned out to be the difference between a win and Alabama falling victim to a sweep. Riley Quick delivered four innings, the longest Crimson Tide start of the weekend.

Prior to the home run by Lebron, first baseman Will Hodo hit an RBI single with two away just before the seventh-inning stretch, giving Alabama a 4-3 advantage and its first lead of the entire weekend after a 10-0 loss on Friday. The Crimson Tide's first run of the series came on a Kade Snell single in the top of the third, scoring catcher Brady Neal.

Alabama did well to respond in Saturday's first game less than 24 hours removed from its worst performance of the season. Unfortunately for Rob Vaughn's squad, those fortunes did not carry over into game two.

On Friday, Zane Adams was pulled with nobody out in the second inning. In Saturday's nightcap, starter Bobby Alcock only got one out in the first. He was charged with four runs, all earned, and the loss. Reliever Braylon Myers tossed 4.2 innings of two-run ball. The early deficit was too big a hole.

Second baseman Garrett Staton gave the Crimson Tide some life in the top of the second when he hit a three-run home run while the visitors were down 4-0. The Tigers scored the next three runs of the game, with third baseman Eric Guevara's sixth-inning solo home run putting a bow on it.

Guevara was a replacement for weekend-long leadoff hitter Eric Snow. Snow was hit on the helmet by Myers and left the game in the home half of the second. Auburn (22-10, 6-6 SEC) got three RBIs from center fielder Bub Terrell in the second game and a 3-for-3 day with a pair batted in from nine-hole hitter and shortstop Deric Fabian in the first.

A two-out, two-RBI single from third baseman Jason Torres in the seventh inning of the series finale narrowed a four-run Crimson Tide deficit to two, but Alabama's next six batters all went down in order against Ryan Hetzler (three innings and his third save of 2025). Inconveniently, those were the last six outs the offense had to work with.

The Crimson Tide struggled badly with retiring leadoff hitters all weekend. For perspective, in the first nine innings during the series in which the Tigers batted, eight leadoff hitters got aboard. It didn't stop there. That produces runs. Hitting Snow, for example, cost Myers one.

Alabama also left an important run on the board in the second game during the seventh inning, when Neal made an out at the plate after Lebron hit into a fielder's choice. That cost the visiting side an opportunity to get Guevara's run back, though Torres took care of that eventually.

"The second game got off to a rough start, but we stayed in the fight and gave ourselves a chance late. We just didn’t have enough to finish," Vaughn said. "Overall, we just have to get out of the gate better on both sides of the ball."

No. 13 Southern Miss is next for Alabama (the loser of a series at Auburn in back-to-back years), which returns to Sewell-Thomas Stadium for that contest on Tuesday. The Crimson Tide's next SEC foe is Mississippi State, also at home, next weekend.

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