AUBURN, Ala. – No. 25 Auburn baseball took an early punch and rebounded with four homers to defeat Samford Tuesday night at Plainsman Park, 15-8. The win marks seven straight victories for the Tigers since falling to Holy Cross in the first series of the season.
Despite the scoreline, Auburn was the team that had to overcome the early deficit, a walk put Jeffery Ince on for Samford and an error advanced him to third and the next batter, Sam Gundy to second. Cade Carr dropped one down the left field line and both runners came around to make it a 2-0 Bulldog lead. The Tigers went down in order in an inning that didn’t threaten the Samford advantage.
However, that would all change after Andreas Alvarez worked out of another leadoff walk to send it to the bottom of the second inning. The Tigers got to work quickly as Cooper McMurray took the payoff pitch deep to right field to put Auburn on the board. Bub Terrell walked and Chase Fralick doubled down the right-field line to put runners on second and third. A single by Lucas Steele brought home Terrell and put runners on the corners for Chris Rembert, who blasted the first pitch over the left-center wall to give the Tigers a 5-2 lead.
Auburn extended the lead in the third on a Bub Terrell bomb into the Samford bullpen in right-center that also brought home Deric Fabian, making it 7-2. The Bulldogs scored five in the fourth to level it, but Auburn wasn’t done offensively. Eric Snow put another into the Bulldog bullpen to give the Tigers the lead back. Chris Rembert and Eric Snow doubled and brought in another three combined before Ike Irish added one more on a sacrifice groundout. Auburn left the fifth inning leading 12-7. The Tigers added one more on a Lucas Steele sacrifice grounder during the sixth and it was 13-7.
The seventh brought more runs with Samford bringing one across in the top half and Auburn bringing two more around in the bottom. This was all she wrote for the game as Auburn shut down Samford for the 15-8 win.
Parker Carlson grabbed the win in relief for Auburn, pitching 2.2 innings, striking out three and only allowing one run on two hits. When asked about the reliever, Coach Butch Thompson had this to say.
“They [Samford] absolutely swung those bats, and Carlson had his hands full… And man, I hope he can get his stuff set, and I think his strike percentage is higher than anyone on our pitching staff currently… I’ll be expecting him to cycle good as a veteran player and be back to help us out in Texas soon.”
Dylan Watts settled in for the two-inning save, striking out five of the last six batters to earn Auburn the victory. Chris Rembert went 2-4 on the night with a homer and four RBIs. Eric Snow was 3-6 and only a triple away from the cycle with a solo shot and three RBIs.
Auburn travels to Arlington, Texas this weekend to play Ohio State, Oregon State, and Baylor at Globe Life Field in the Amergy Bank College Baseball Series. You can listen to all of them live on the Auburn Sports Network.
