Auburn baseball survives and advances in the College World Series
Going into Monday's matchup against Stanford, Auburn baseball didn't really have a lot of familiarity with their opponent. "We'd been watching video of him (Stanford reliever Quinn Mathews) and we knew that was their guy. We knew if we wanted any chance of winning today, we'd have to deal with him." explained head coach Butch Thompson after the game. "Mathews is a really good player and we really didn't know which starting pitcher we'd get - they've moved around with their two-hole guys - so we just tried to take their three best guys and started preparing on them. Mathews is one we absolutely watched a lot of video on and talked about what we had to do against him."
The focus on the junior lefty Mathews, 9-1 with a 2.62 ERA and 9 saves entering today, was a prescient choice. After Stanford's offense staked starter Drew Dowd to a 2-0 lead early thanks to a single and three hard-hit doubles off of Auburn starter Trace Bright in the first two innings, Dowd finally was lifted for Mathews with two on in the 5th. Auburn ended up not scoring in the inning - an attempted sacrifice bunt back to the pitcher erased the lead runner at 3rd and a caught stealing at 2nd ended the inning, but Thompson said the "goofy" baseball was a good thing - "It made me happy. It was goofy baseball but we scored four runs (the next inning)." Despite running themselves out of a rally, the aggressiveness began to change the mindset and woke the offense up from their slumber.
Thompson explained that the aggressiveness stemmed from watching other teams create offense in Omaha. "I was watching Oklahoma last night, and they made the first and third outs at third base and everybody was throwing trash at them. I thought, ‘They’re right where they need to be, because they’re playing and they’re attacking."
Auburn continued to attack the next time up against Mathews, loading the bases in the 6th before Bobby Pierce drew a walk to score a run and Cole Foster, who was ill all weekend, crushed a double off of the top of the wall in left-center to clear the bases and give Auburn a four to two lead.
"That's probably the hit of that young man's life and I look up and he's barely getting into 2nd with his head down." Foster actually was lifted from Auburn's loss to Ole Miss on Saturday with dehydration - reports are that there's some sort of illness that's gone through the Auburn team, with multiple players in various states of gastrointestinal distress since the team arrived in Omaha.
Despite the poor health, Auburn fought throughout the game. Trace Bright, after allowing four hits in the first two innings, was actually very close to leaving the game in the 3rd inning - "one hitter away, I don't know if he knows that", according to Thompson, but Bright recovered to sit down seven straight Stanford hitters and finished the game with five innings of five hit, two run baseball with a program record eight CWS strikeouts and no walks. Said Thompson "I gained more respect than ever for him."
Tommy Sheehan, the veteran lefty who got to see some former teammates from Notre Dame here in Omaha, came on to start the 6th and gave Auburn 1.2 innings of scoreless baseball, with three strikeouts, two hits, and a walk. After getting into a bases-loaded jam in the 7th, Closer Blake Burkhalter entered to induce a strikeout to strand all three runners and preserve the lead at 4, firing cutters and using a fastball he claimed to not feel confident in. "I didn't think I had my fastball at all, but it worked. Everything's coming together at the right time."
Burkhalter finished the game, recording five strikeouts over the final 2.1 innings to give Auburn a program CWS-record 16 strikeouts for the game and notching his 16th save of the season, good for 2nd all-time in program history.
The offense, mired in a three game slump, finally came alive. Through the first three innings of the game, Auburn was facing a 31-inning stretch of only getting two leadoff men on base. In the next four innings against Stanford, Auburn got the leadoff man on in every single inning and scored in two of the four. For the game, Auburn batted 5-11 (.455) from the leadoff spot and scored four of their six RBIs with two outs, batting 6-19 (.316) with two outs.
Rambusch, Foster, and Howell all collected multiple hits, accounting for two runs and three RBIs. Mike Bello got on twice out of the 9 hole, once via hit and once via walk, coming around to score once.
During all this, Auburn even had time to rescue a baby bird that found its way into the dugout and was suffering from heat exhaustion. Backup catcher Jake Wyandt was caught by ESPN cameras trying to give the bird water, and Trace Bright discussed it after the game. "They were playing, but I had a front-row seat to the bird - it was right in front of me. Maybe a rally bird?"
We can report that the bird was taken to a local wildlife recovery center and is reported to be doing fine, and will make a full recovery. Thompson was so focused on the game and strategy that he didn't even realize something was happening. "There was a bird? I had no idea something was even going on. I didn't see a bird."
Auburn is back in action tomorrow at 6PM versus the loser of tonight's Arkansas vs Ole Miss game in an elimination game, Auburn's second of the College World Series; Mason Barnett is the starter for the Tigers. The game is being televised on ESPN and broadcast on Channel 84 on Sirius XM as well as the radio call, with Voice of the Tigers Andy Burcham and producer Brad Law, being available on AuburnTigers.com and locally on 93.9 FM.
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