Takeaways from Auburn baseball's midweek victory over Samford
Auburn baseball got back to their midweek winning ways with a 13-3 run-rule victory over Samford in a fur-covered Plainsman Park - Bark in the Park was tonight, and the puppers took over the stadium.
Here's what you need to know from the contest:
Cole Foster, STUD
The Tigers switch-hitting shortstop had himself a NIGHT, going 3-4 with a homerun, a walk, three runs scored, an RBI, and two stolen bases.
He launched one to right-center in the bottom of the third, his fifth homerun of the year, and then single-handedly manufactured a run in the 4th inning: Walked to get on, stole 2nd AND 3rd, and then jogged home on a Bryson Ware single up the middle.
The junior's overcome a rough start to the season to be sitting on a .338 batting average, good for fourth on the team behind Ike Irish (.384), Bryson Ware (.359), and Bobby Pierce (.347).
Maybe stop running on Bobby Pierce?
Auburn's senior leftfielder (and team captain) is playing left field instead of right field this season specifically so that he can do things like, well, this:
Pierce has one of the strongest non-pitcher arms on the team, and he showed exactly why moving your right fielder to left is an underutilized tactic in Plainsman Park's notoriously-shallow left field.
Auburn's characteristic smooth defense showed up tonight, with Kason Howell doing his best golden retriever impression to run down balls in the gap and Cole Foster making a few diving plays deep in the hole at short.
The freshman arms came to play
Auburn's first three pitchers in the ballgame were all true freshmen - Zach Crotchfelt, Hayden Murphy, and Drew Nelson. The trio combined for seven hits and only three runs in their six innings of work, with Hayden Murphy collecting his first collegiate win. More significantly, Auburn's staff on the night only walked three batters - it was the first time Auburn had walked less than four batters in a game since March 28's midweek matchup against North Alabama.
Head coach Butch Thompson discussed how important the outing was for the long-term growth of the trio, using Nelson as an example: "He was up and had an extended at-bat against a left handed hitter and wound up full count - guy hits a double down the right field line. I think the best teacher is him continuing to be in that situation. He's going to learn how to maybe not even get to 3-2 there, and it was really because you couldn't get anything else in there. And yeah, he kept fouling the fastball off, but (Nelson's) gonna learn how to unlock and break open that at-bat and win those battles. I think the best way to do it, it's not in here (in the meeting room). I think Crotchfelt, Murphy, and Nelson are at that stage where they're going to keep drawing closer and finishing off guys [...] They're learning on the job. They're getting closer."
The bottom of the lineup wasn't able to get in the game
Auburn logged fourteen hits in the contest, and twelve of those were from the first five hitters in the lineup. The bottom four hitters - Justin Kirby, Kason Howell, Nate LaRue, and Caden Green - combined to go 2-13 with three strikeouts and six runners left on base. The only hits from that group was a leadoff single by Caden Green in the bottom of the 8th that was up the middle and off the shortstop's glove and Kason Howell's walkoff double (thanks to the run rule).
We've had games where the bottom of the lineup carried the offense in spurts, but Auburn's not getting the expected contributions from the upperclassman-laden bottom of the lineup that they expected entering the season:
In 436 at-bats, those four players have 103 hits to 123 strikeouts, with catcher Nate LaRue's .123 average being the most egregious.
Looking ahead
Depending on who you ask, Auburn's either tracking for a #3 seed in the Wake Forest Regional (per D1Baseball) or one of the First Four Out (per Baseball America). It's all going to come down to how Auburn finishes the conference slate, and it's a doozy: A trip to #6 South Carolina and home vs #1 LSU, sandwiched by two struggling SEC West programs in Mississippi State and Ole Miss and wrapping with Missouri. Three of the five are at home (the other road series is Ole Miss), but Auburn's got to handle business against the two Mississippi teams and Mizzouri and then need to steal one (or two) against both of their ranked opponents.
That mission starts this weekend, with Mississippi State coming into town. Chris Lemonis's squad is tied with Auburn in the standings at 5-10, and Auburn needs to stay ahead of them because the Tigers don't have tiebreakers against either Texas A&M or Alabama by virtue of losing both series this season.
The belief inside the program is that 14 conference wins are going to be required to capture one of the projected ten SEC spots in this year's Field of 64. Sweeping all three non-ranked teams will give you nine more conference wins to get to 14, and every game you drop in those three series require you to get one from either South Carolina or LSU. It's not impossible, but it's not going to be easy, either.
The back half of the conference slate - a "blank page", as Thompson called it - starts this weekend with a three-game set at home against Mississippi State. Game times for the series are 6:00PM (Friday), 2:00PM (Saturday), and 1:00PM (Sunday), and all three games are available for streaming on SEC Network+.