AUBURN – The hot bats carried over from the weekend series against Wright State for the Auburn baseball team as it took down Samford 15-8 in their midweek matchup on Tuesday night at Plainsman Park.
“I think we had a chance to basically score every inning today, and our two strike approach… I don't think you can count on four home runs a ball game in college baseball, but I'll take it and they've done it. But I'm more interested in keeping the consistency of when we got to two strikes we still were hard to deal with,” said Auburn head coach Butch Thompson.
The Tigers tallied 13 hits on the night with eight of the nine players in the lineup recording a hit while adding 14 RBIs. After hitting four home runs in Sunday’s series finale against Wright State – tied for the most since hitting five at South Carolina in 2023 – Auburn matched that mark again against the Bulldogs with a freshman duo, Chris Rembert and Bub Terrell, recording two of them. The Tigers also recorded five doubles on the night and scored at least one run in every inning but the first and eighth.
On the mound, Parker Carlson got the win out of the bullpen with a no-hit, no-walk performance in 2.2 innings. The right-handed senior pounded the zone, finishing with a 78% strike percentage.
“They absolutely swung those bats, and Carlson had his hands full. But it's a little different look. That's a power-breaking pitch. That's an 87 MPH, 88 MPH breaking pitch. And I think his strike percentage is higher than anybody on our pitching staff currently," said Thompson.
Dylan Watts was the other Tiger pitcher to hold the Bulldogs scoreless as he finished the last two innings with five strikeouts while only allowing one hit with a high-heater reaching 95 MPH.
“Watts was as good as I've seen him, and I know it was the best slider I've seen him throw in a game tonight in those two innings,” Thompson said. “He just looks settled, comfortable and getting to his stuff.”
Samford started off the scoring efforts in the high-scoring affair from the jump with two runs in the first inning after Eric Snow botched a backhand attempt that later allowed Jeffrey Ince and Gus Gandy to score on a single through the right side off the bat of Cade Carr.
Auburn notched a five-run second inning that saw Cooper McMurray lead off the inning with a solo blast to right field, a Lucas Steele RBI single, and a three-run home run off the batter’s eye from Rembert to give it a three-run advantage.
After that, Samford was held scoreless until the fourth inning in which it broke loose with five runs with six hits in the inning. Jackson Harris recorded an RBI single, Hayden Perry recorded a two-RBI single and Carr doubled down the line in right to score two.
Auburn held the Bulldogs scoreless until the seventh, when they added one run, their final run, on a Jake Souders double to center field that scored Trey Higgins.
In the home half of the fifth, Auburn added four more with a pair of doubles from Rembert and Eric Snow. Ike Irish drove in a run with an RBI groundout to first. The Tigers added three more in the sixth and seventh innings on a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly.
Auburn will take to the road for the first time this season as it will play in the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series at Globe Life Field this upcoming weekend. The Tigers open up on Friday against Ohio State at 3 p.m. The game will be streamed on FloCollege.
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