Auburn completes sweep of Missouri, ends regular season on 8-game winning streak
The Auburn Tigers are officially red-hot.
After taking both games in Friday’s doubleheader over Missouri, they had a chance to sweep their second straight SEC series. It wasn’t looking good as they entered the bottom of the eighth inning trailing 7-4 in Plainsman Park Saturday.
As it has all season Auburn’s offense came alive when they needed it most, exploding for five runs to take a commanding 9-7 lead and win the game. Auburn secured its fifth straight SEC series win and ended the season on an eight-game winning streak with the comeback. They are now 33-19-1 overall and 17-13 in league play.
“We absolutely played hard and kept going,” Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. “When it opened up and we got an opportunity, we made the most of it.”
Brody Wortham started the eighth inning off with a single and came around to score on a Chris Stanfield double to get the scoring started. Cole Foster then singled Stanfield home to pull Auburn within one.
Cooper McMurray followed up a Bobby Pierce strikeout with a double to put the go-ahead run in scoring position with two outs for Bryson Ware. Missouri decided to intentionally walk him to load the bases for freshmen Ike Irish.
Before he could do anything the Missouri pitcher threw a wild pitch that allowed Foster to score and make it a 7-7 game.
Irish then put Auburn ahead with a two-RBI single to make it a 9-7 game.
“We battled and we fought, we figured some stuff out and it’s all come together here lately,” Irish said. “I was not trying to do too much, stay with my approach and put the ball in play, especially with two strikes. They shifted on me and I hit it where they weren’t, and we got one to sneak through.”
He finished the game with a pair of doubles and two RBI.
Auburn was playing catchup the whole game after Missouri scored three runs in the first inning. They got two of the runs back in the second inning after Caden Green and Stanfield hit sacrifice flies to score Irish and Kason Howell, respectively.
Missouri added a run in the top of the third but Pierce responded with a double and scored on a Ware single to make it 4-3 in the bottom of the inning.
Missouri then played small ball in the fourth to get their fifth run of the game. They led the inning off with a bunt single, advanced on a ground out and scored on a two-out double.
The home Tigers quickly responded when Nate LaRue led the home half of the inning off with a solo home run to make it 5-4. Both pitching staffs settled in after that, Auburn reliever Tanner Bauman retired the next 10 batters he saw before allowing a single and then a home run in the eighth.
The lefty allowed two runs in 3.2 innings of work and struck out three and gave his offense a chance to get back in the game.
“I just wanted to go out there and fill up the zone and give my offense a chance to get back in this game, which obviously they did,” Bauman said. “Coming back on a short day’s rest, I wanted to keep it easy, let my defense work, which is what I try to do, and it ended up working out pretty well.”
Will Cannon entered in the eighth and the only runner he allowed was one he hit. He struck out one batter as he earned the win.
Auburn has not lost an SEC game since May 5 and is set to open its SEC Tournament run on Tuesday against Missouri.
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