How did Auburn baseball turn around their season? It's thanks to Daron Schoenrock
When I last sat down to write about the pitching staff, I said "March 19th, 2023 was the low point for the Auburn Tigers."
And it was. Go read it, I'll wait:
After struggling early, Auburn is the hottest team in college baseball
There's someone else that deserves to be recognized for the turnaround, someone I didn't give credit to in that piece.
Daron Schoenrock.
Auburn's pitching coach is a baseball lifer, having spent 38 years as a pitching coach, including the last 18 as the head coach at Memphis before stepping down after the 2022 season.
But he wasn't done yet. Butch Thompson wouldn't let him be done.
Butch announced "Rock" as his pitching coach on August 1st, replacing Tim Hudson, who left (on good terms) to go coach his son's final season at Lee-Scott Academy.
And since then, Rock's put in the work.
"We don't do a time clock here, but I think he has sat at that computer and he's been here with these boys. I think he's logged the most hours this year. [...] I think he's been the hardest working man, and I think he's been an amazing man" said Thompson on Saturday after Auburn secured the sweep of Missouri with yet another late rally.
"To have 39 years of coaching experience, he's been a head coach for a long time - he was my pitching coach! To submit to 'you're the head coach now'? Just an amazing man."
Schoenrock was the steadying force for Thompson and the pitching staff when things weren't going so well.
"We turned the thing upside down, and started throwing guys in different roles" vs Florida, said Thompson. Remember Will Cannon and John Armstrong as starters? That happened.
"I kicked the ant hill in. I think I made it worse before I made it better. [...] That's where a coach really impacts a ball club, one way or the other. So I went full bore bad guy."
But through it all, no matter how insistent Butch got about the three tenets - the fewest freebies (walks, wild pitches/passed balls, & HBP), the biggest inning, and having the most baserunners - Rock was the port in the storm.
"To have that kind of quiet confidence, that stoic...staying with young people. As you know, I'm doing flips, somersaults, saying 'it's not good enough' and 'we've got to raise the standard' - he just stayed the course."
And it would have been easy to make excuses - they were right there. You lost five juniors on the mound from last year to MLB, you lost this year's #1 pitcher (Joseph Gonzalez) after week one. But instead, Schoenrock just stayed the course.
And Rock's steady hand on the ship's wheel, combined with Thompson's flip of the pitching roles, paid off.
"We come back out by finding (Tommy) Vail. We put (Will) Cannon back there, we calm down. We understand these tenets are for real. It doesn't matter how you feel. It's not about you. [...] This has got to be about Auburn at some point. We've got to raise the standard."
And raise it they have. Since Tommy Vail's start against Alabama on April 14th, Tommy Vail's ERA is 1.49, covering 30.2 innings across six appearances - all Auburn wins.
In that same timeframe, Cannon's logged two saves and covered fifteen innings across nine outings, with Auburn winning eight of those games.
"I see it as a blessing, like abundantly clear right now, to have somebody like (Schoenrock) that's been here with us.[...] He was the perfect guy to be with this staff, and this transition. I can't think of a better man to do that. I already loved him, personally, and I respect him as much or more than I ever have. Because the way he handled this year, and the way he hung in there with these boys."
"If you could see behind the scenes, you'd be really impressed."
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