Auburn Throttles No. 3 Georgia Tech in College World Series Preview

The No. 4 Auburn Tigers played host to the No. 3 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Tuesday night, the highest-ranked matchup in Plainsman Park history. Many billed the bout as a potential CWS preview, and Auburn delivered in a big way, dominating the Yellow Jackets en route to a 9-2 victory. So, what did we learn from the midweek beatdown?

The main story from the game has to be Auburn pitching, which completely shut down a Georgia Tech lineup that entered the day as arguably the best in the nation: ranked No. 1 in the country in batting average, No. 3 in home runs, No. 1 in on-base percentage, and No. 2 in slugging percentage.

Sophomore Andreas Alvarez got the start for Auburn, and he refused to let the Georgia Tech hitters make contact. Alvarez may not be a weekend starter for the Tigers, but he pitched like one. Alvarez pitched five shutout innings on just two hits, three walks and an eye-watering 10 strikeouts.

Dre dialed up a good one. 💪

5.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R/0 ER, 3 BB, 10 K pic.twitter.com/pHAI4hcRlk
— Auburn Baseball (@AuburnBaseball) March 17, 2026

In just five innings of work, that means Alvarez recorded two-thirds of his outs via the K against a lineup that entered the day No. 1 in the nation in on-base percentage and batting average. The pitching success continued with Christian Chatterton, who pitched two innings and struck out four batters while allowing a single earned run.

Freshman and Tuscaloosa native LJ Cormier came in to finish the game, pitching the final two innings and allowing just one baserunner, which came via a walk in the eighth inning. Tonight was the first time this season in 21 games that the Yellow Jacket lineup was held under four runs, and just the third time that they were kept under 6 runs.

Auburn pitching took a lineup that had been the best in the nation and made it look lost for the majority of a full-length game, an accomplishment that I do not think can be overstated.

The Auburn lineup also played its part, putting up a stout nine runs on the board that had many of the Auburn faithful hoping for a run-rule victory after an early 9-1 lead. The damage was done early, as the Tigers jumped on redshirt freshman Dimitri Angelakos and redshirt sophomore Jake Lankie to score all nine runs in the first five innings.

Six different Auburn batters recorded at least one RBI, though only Chris Rembert had multiple on the day. Rembert smoked a two-run home run to deep left field in the third inning to put the Tigers up 4-1, and then added an RBI single that scored Auburn’s ninth run of the evening.

Though Georgia Tech was not throwing its best arms and pitching has not been the Yellow Jackets’ strength so far this season, for the Auburn lineup to be able to decimate the arms of a College World Series hopeful is an extremely encouraging sign as the Tigers prepare for the upcoming weekend series against Texas.

Though tonight’s game against Georgia Tech set a Plainsman Park record for the highest-ranked matchup in the venue’s history, that record will be broken on Friday as No. 4 Auburn welcomes No. 2 Texas to the Plains in an enormous SEC home opener for the Tigers as they look to firmly place themselves near the top spot of the polls come next week.