Auburn, Ala—The No. 17 Auburn Tigers (14-7, 0-4) faced the No. Arkansas Razorbacks (18-2, 4-0), for their SEC home opener, and fell short, losing the game 1-0.
“I think they can play with anybody,” Auburn head coach Butch Thompson said. “Even all the way, right to I thought those were contributing something.”
Auburn did show that they can play with any team, especially since Arkansas sits atop the college baseball world right now. The Tigers just got down by a run too early and could never figure out how to score a run the rest of the time they were at-bat.
“I’m more frustrated tonight, by not being able to get the one hit or something that happened in our favor tonight to win a ballgame,” Thompson said after the game.
Auburn finished the game with no runs, 3 hits, and 1 error, and one of the reasons that they had so few hits tonight is because the Tigers had 17 total strikeouts by either swinging or looking, and the Tigers were unable to connect in the first game of the series.
The fourth inning was when Auburn had their best chance of scoring a run, especially because they had the bases loaded with two outs to give, but by the end of the inning, the score was still 1-0 Arkansas, as the Tigers were unable to convert.
Even though Auburn struggled when they were up to bat, their outfield plays and pitching tonight appeared much better than in the Vanderbilt series, especially the pitching.
“McBride did a nice job for four innings, Tilly good rebound for the freshman, Bauman a trusted guy, Canon got an inning of work,” Thompson said, “I thought all that right up to the end everything was kind of scripted there.”
The Tiger’s four pitchers did a great job by preventing the game from getting out of hand and delivering Arkansas their smallest margin of victory this season.
Luckily for Auburn, there are still two more games left in the series, and if they can figure out how to hit the ball and pitch the same as they did in their first game, a Tiger victory is certainly possible.
The first pitch of the second game in the Auburn v Arkansas series is set to occur at 6 pm CT inside Plainsmen Park. The game can be viewed on the Auburn Sports Network and SEC Network+.
