Moving up: Auburn rises in four major rankings after sixth SEC series win

AUBURN — Auburn baseball continues to play well, taking two of three at then Top-10 Tennessee over the weekend.

Butch Thompson and Co. are now 33-15 overall and 13-11 in the SEC.

The Tigers have won six of the eight conference series played, and has won eight of their last 10 conference series dating back to last season. Auburn is the only team in the league with eight series wins in their last 10.

Auburn is the only team in the league to win eight of its last 10 SEC series.

All this success has culminated in another jump in various rankings.

RPI: No. 4 (Georgia, Texas and Vanderbilt are one, two and three from the SEC, with Arkansas at five)
Perfect Game: No. 8 (Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and LSU ahead)
D1 Baseball: No. 8 (Texas, LSU, Georgia and Arkansas ahead)
Baseball America: No. 5 (Georgia, Texas and Arkansas ahead)

Auburn is seventh in the SEC standings. Texas is first at 19-5, but was just swept at Arkansas, who is 17-7. LSU and Georgia are both 15-9, Tennessee and Vanderbilt are 14-10, with Auburn, Oklahoma, Alabama and Ole Miss sitting at 13-11.

The Tigers’ record is deceiving with six of the 11 losses to two different No. 1 teams on the road — Georgia and Texas. If Auburn could have won at least one game in those series, they would be sitting in third place.

Up next is a home series against South Carolina this weekend, who sits at 5-19 in league play. Auburn then travels to Ole Miss for a three-game series before the SEC Tournament.

How good was the Tigers’ performance this past weekend in Knoxville?

Auburn held Tennessee to one run in two of three games played. The Volunteers had only been held to one run on one other occasion this season entering the weekend. And in the third game, Auburn only allowed five runs in 11 innings.

Auburn was 9-for-11 in stolen bases.

The two home runs hit by Tennessee were the second fewest hit in a series this season, trailing just the one hit at LSU last weekend. On the flip side, six Auburn players hit .300 or better in the three games in Knoxville and seven drove in a run in the series.

The Tigers also did not commit an error in 101 chances at Tennessee.

Ike Irish, Chris Rembert, Christian Chatterton and Sam Dutton were fantastic.

Irish hit .444 with five RBIs and six runs scored in the series. He’s hitting .435 in SEC road series. Rembert hit .417 with five runs scored against the Vols. He’s hitting .471 during his current eight-game hit streak.

The freshman Chatterton threw three scoreless innings in the Sunday finale against Tennessee, facing just one batter over the minimum and retiring 26 of the 29 batters faced. He was 2-0 in two starts on the week, throwing six scoreless innings against Samford on Tuesday, while striking out 10.

And then there’s Dutton, who threw 6.2 innings against the Vols, giving up four hits, walking none and striking out eight. He retired the first 13 batters he faced. Dutton ranks top 10 in the league in all three categories in league games only – ERA (2.83), innings pitched (47.2), strikeouts (53).

The six SEC series wins this season are already tied for the most since winning seven of 10 SEC series in 2017. The series at Tennessee marked Auburn’s fifth against a top-10 team in the last six weekends.

The team’s 33-15 overall record is the best through 48 games since going 34-14 in 2018. The 13-11 mark in SEC play is tied for the best through eight weeks since 2017 (14-10).

Tuesday’s win vs. Samford was the team’s fifth shutout of the season, the most since also turning in five shutouts in the shortened 2020 season. It also marked the sixth time this season the Tigers held the opponents to two hits.

The team’s 1.78 ERA was just 0.03 points shy of the best in the league for the week – Georgia turned in a 1.75 ERA in four games against Kennesaw State and Missouri. Auburn walked just nine batters in 35.1 innings pitched for the week, the second fewest by a team that played four games.

The weekend marked the team’s third road series win against a top-10 team in Thompson’s tenure – 2017 at No. 7 Mississippi State (Apr. 28-29) and 2023 at No. 2 South Carolina (Apr. 28-30).

The seven runs scored were four fewer than the Volunteers had scored in any other series this season. The team’s 2.39 ERA at Tennessee surpassed the LSU series (2.67) for the best in a SEC series since registering a 1.33 ERA in a three-game sweep of Tennessee to start the 2019 conference season.

The Auburn pitching staff has held the opponent to four runs or fewer in nine of the last 15 games.

Auburn enters the week No. 4 in the RPI with the No. 2 strength of schedule.