Auburn baseball crushes Missouri, wins ninth straight SEC game
Auburn baseball opened the 2023 SEC Tournament with a 10-4 win over No. 12 seed Missouri in Hoover, Ala. on Tuesday night. The Tigers move to 34-19 overall and end a four-game SEC Tournament losing streak dating to 2019.
WINNING STREAK ROLLS ON: Auburn has now won nine straight SEC games.
The last time Auburn lost a baseball game was on May 5, the first game of the home series against then No. 1 LSU. The current winning streak is the longest conference winning streak since at least 1995.
Auburn has scored 87 runs during their nine-game winning streak.
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BOMBS AWAY: Cole Foster hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the fourth inning that still may not have landed, giving Auburn a 7-4 lead they would never relinquish.
Foster’s moon shot into the trees past the right-field wall at the Hoover Met was his 12th of the season. The home run came after Auburn watched their 3-1 lead turn into a 4-3 deficit in the top of the fourth inning.
“As soon as I hit it, I looked at my dugout and blacked out completely,” Foster said after the fact.
BACK IN ACTION: Starting pitcher Tommy Veil returned to action after dealing with an illness that limited him to only two innings pitched against Missouri last Friday.
Veil threw 3.2 innings, allowing only two hits and striking out five. However, Veil walked four and threw 83 pitches (47 strikes and 36 balls). Veil has now walked four or more batters six times since SEC play started, but also struck out four or more batters nine times during the same time span.
RELIEVERS DO THE JOB: Chase Allsup and Zach Crotchfelt held Missouri to zero runs over the final 5.1 innings of baseball.
Isbell allowed three hits and struck out two in three innings of relief, while Crotchfelt allowed one hit and struck out four in 2.1 innings of work to close things out.
BATS COME ALIVE: Auburn finished with 10 runs, 11 hits and two home runs and three doubles in the win.
Auburn tallied 10 runs and 10 hits between the third and eighth innings.
Chris Stanfield, Ike Irish and Foster finished with two hits each. Irish recorded his 23rd double of his freshman season. Cooper McMurray and Stanfield added doubles of their own.
Bryson Ware didn’t let Foster have all the fun, hitting a two-run bomb in the bottom of the eighth inning to seal the deal.
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NEXT UP: With the win, Auburn moves into the double elimination portion of the SEC Tournament.
No. 5 seed Auburn will play No. 4 seed Vanderbilt in the late game on Wednesday evening. Start time is to be determined. Vanderbilt is a top-10 team in both D1Baseball and Baseball America rankings, and sits at No. 8 in the RPI rankings.
Auburn didn’t play Vanderbilt during the regular season, but did take two of three during a series at Plainsman Park last season. The Tigers last played the Commodores in the SEC Tournament in the 2019 season, falling 11-1 in eight innings.
If Auburn baseball wins, they’ll face the winner of No. 9 seed Alabama and No. 1 seed Florida on Thursday afternoon. If they won that game, they wouldn’t play again until Saturday.
If Auburn loses, they’ll face the loser of the Tide and Gators in an elimination game on Thursday night. If the Tigers won that game, they’d play again Friday. If they lose, they’d be heading home.
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