Auburn (18-16, 2-12) Hosted the Kentucky Wildcats (29-5, 13-1) Saturday night for the second game of the three-game series. The Tigers struggled again, falling to Kentucky 9-1. The story of the game for Auburn was again the pitching struggles, as a potent Wildcat lineup took advantage of the Tiger’s flaw.
Kentucky’s offense did not miss their chance to shine against a weak showing from Auburn on the mound early. The Wildcats posted four home runs in the contest accounting for four of their runs in the first four frames but were blanked by Mcbride in the last five innings.
After a clean first inning, Allsup saw one cross in the second and three in the third where his day ended having given up seven hits. Parker Carlson followed up Allsup with one inning of work in which he gave up two runs on two hits.
The bright spot for Auburn pitching came when Mcbride entered the game bringing the first clean inning for Auburn in the fifth. He was able to keep Kentucky off of the scoreboard until the ninth when he let up a lead-off home run. Despite one bad batter Mcbride shined in his 4.2 innings of work with seven strikeouts allowing four hits and one run, earned. Mcbride single handily gave Auburn a chance to come back.
The Auburn offense, usually potent in its own right, could not quite string together the hits needed to come back in this one. Auburn left 12 runners on, highlighted by a bases-loaded one-out situation in the sixth that could not yield more than one run for Auburn. But despite the threat, the Tigers only had six hits on the night including a 2-15 showing with runners on base.
The Tigers had an early scoring chance in the first when a Gavin Miller double to center nearly drove in McMurray but an excellent throw from Nolan McCarthy snuffed out McMurray at the plate. Then in the sixth Kentucky was forced to go to the bullpen with two on and one out, Auburn loaded the bases and brought in Christian Hall to pinch hit, so Kentucky responded with another pitching change and Hall put Auburn on the board with a sac-fly but that was the extent of Auburn’s scoring chances in this one.
Cooper McMurray was the player to watch on offense for Auburn as he posted a 2-3 day at the plate with a walk, McMurray got the first hit for the Tiger’s with a double in the first inning. Gavin Miller also had a double and late inning single with Stanfield and Peirce also posting hits. The Auburn baserunners came from walks (five) and hit by pitch (three) in this one.
Auburn will look to avoid the sweep on Saturday as the series finale is set for a 2 PM first pitch at Plainsman Park. The game will be streaming on the SECN+ in conjunction with the Auburn Sports Network.
