The aftermath: Auburn wakes up, stays alive with elimination-game win over Stanford

Better late than never for this Auburn baseball team.

After 14 innings of sluggish play in the College World Series, Butch Thompson’s squad finally came alive with four runs in the sixth and two more in the seventh, turning a 2-0 deficit into a 6-2 lead, and holding on for the elimination-game win against 2-seed Stanford.

Final: Auburn (43-21) 6, Stanford (47-18) 2.

“Exciting to get a win in Omaha for our program,” Butch Thompson said.

It was Auburn’s first win over Stanford in the College World Series in five tries all time. The 1997 and 1967 clubs both lost to Stanford twice in the same tournament in their respective years.

Stanford has never gone 0-2 in the College World Series until this year.

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Trace Bright has to be the story of the game for the Tigers.

Stanford got to Bright early, with four hits (three extra bases) and two runs in the first two innings, but that’s all Bright would allow. Bright allowed just one hit over his final three innings of work, finishing the day with eight strikeouts in five innings of work. That’s the most strikeouts for an Auburn pitcher in Omaha – ever.

Bright’s ability to settle in likely saved Auburn’s season, keeping them within striking distance until the bats could finally find life.

“Trace Bright, I gained more respect than ever for him. He was one hitter from coming out in the third inning,” Thompson said.

That started to happen in the fourth and fifth innings, when Auburn put the leadoff man on base in both innings. The Tigers chased Stanford starter Drew Dowd in the fifth inning, but couldn’t capitalize after having men on first and second with no outs. Poorly executed bunts and base running sure made it look like this Auburn team just wasn’t going to find a way to win in Omaha.

Thompson called it “goofy” baseball, and despite the mistakes, he said it made him happy. Thompson felt like, while goofy, the plays woke his team up from a slumber.

And in the sixth inning, things turned around.

Against Stanford’s best reliever and maybe best arm in Quinn Matthews, Auburn would finally break through with four hits and four runs, including a 3-RBI double by Cole Foster. The hit gave Foster 15 RBIs in the NCAA Tournament.

Auburn came back with two more hits and two more runs in the seventh inning, thanks to a RBI double by Bobby Peirce. All that scoring came off of Matthews.

Matthews made nine starts this season for Stanford, then he moved to the bullpen. He entered the game with nine saves. In 96 1/2 innings, opponents’ OBP against Matthews was .204. Auburn lit Matthews up for six hits, six runs in three innings of work.

Auburn reliever Tommy Sheehan was really good again, replacing Bright. Sheehan’s final line: 1.2 IP, 2H and 3K. Things got dicey in the seventh inning, as Stanford loaded the bases with two outs against Sheehan, forcing Auburn pitching coach Tim Hudson to insert Blake Burkhalter into the game.

All Burkhalter did was strikeout Brett Barrera to end the Stanford threat, then throw two more additional innings of hitless baseball to close things out. Burkhalter’s final line: 2.1 IP, 0H, 5K.

“It’s all just starting to click at the right time,” Burkhalter said.

Stanford hitters in the final seven innings: Four hits, 13 strikeouts and no runs.

Breaking down the scoring

Scoring Summary

Team	Inn	Scoring Dec.	Play	Batter	Pitcher	Outs
STAN	Bot 1	2B 9 1RBI	Barrera doubled to right center, RBI (2-2 KKBB); Jones scored.	Barrera	Bright	1
STAN	Bot 2	2B LL 1RBI	Crampton doubled down the lf line, RBI (1-2 BSKFF); Troy scored.	Crampton	Bright	2
AU	Top 6	BB 1RBI	Peirce walked, RBI (3-2 FBKFBBB); DiChiara advanced to second; Rambusch advanced to third; Bello scored.	Peirce	Mathews	1
AU	Top 6	2B 8 3RBI	Foster doubled to center field, 3 RBI (1-1 BK); Peirce scored; DiChiara scored; Rambusch scored.	Foster	Mathews	2
AU	Top 7	F7 SF 1RBI	Moore flied out to lf to left center, SF, RBI (0-1 F); Ware scored.	Moore	Mathews	0
AU	Top 7	2B 7 1RBI	Peirce doubled to left center, RBI (1-1 BF); Rambusch scored.	Peirce	Mathews	2

Critical stats in Auburn’s win over Stanford

Through the first three innings of the game against Stanford, Auburn had gone 31 previous innings with two leadoff men getting on base. In the next four innings, Auburn put four straight men on base, with the Tigers scoring in two of those four innings.

Auburn was .455 (5-11) in leadoff hitting for the game.

Foster’s bases-clearing double in the sixth inning was the first lead change in the entire College World Series.

That was Quinn Mathews’ worst outing of the season for Stanford. He gave up 6 ER against Oregon in March, but that was on 4+ innings.

After striking out 13 Ole Miss hitters, Auburn pitching came back with 16 strikeouts against Stanford.

Four of Auburn’s six RBIs came with two outs.

The day after allowing Ole Miss to hit .357 (5-14) with two outs, Auburn pitching held Stanford hitting to .237 (3-11) with two outs.

Auburn, meanwhile, hit .316 (6-19) with two outs.

Inside the box score, Auburn 6, Stanford 2

What’s next for Auburn?

Auburn will play again on Tuesday at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN. The Tigers will play the loser of the “1-0 game” between Ole Miss and Arkansas. If Auburn were to win again on Tuesday, they would play the winner of Ole Miss and Arkansas on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN.

It would be expected that Auburn will start Mason Barnett on Tuesday night.