Auburn baseball beats UCLA 11-4, advances to Super Regional vs Oregon State

The Tigers travel to Corvallis, Oregon to take on the Beavers this upcoming weekend

Auburn baseball defeated UCLA, 11-4, to clinch the Auburn Regional championship and set up a matchup with Oregon State in the Super Regionals this weekend in Corvallis, Oregon.

In a game that started over two hours late, due to lightning, and was suspended and resumed the next day due to weather, Auburn’s bats were consistently electric. The Tigers scored two runs in the first and chased UCLA starter James Hepp before he could record an out. The two runs would have been enough for Mason Barnett, but Auburn added runs in the 4th, 5th, and 6th innings to hold a 9-0 lead in the Auburn Regional when play was suspended for weather in the 6th inning.

Resuming Monday at 2:00 PM, new pitchers Carson Skipper and Blake Burkhalter, a tandem that had keyed so many Auburn victories this season, each allowed two runs across a combined 3.2 innings but sealed the win and sent Auburn to their 3rd Super Regionals appearance in their last five years, following a Super Regionals loss in 2018 and a victory in 2019 that culminated in the program’s fifth College World Series appearance in program history.

© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

Over the course of the tournament, Auburn’s offense was the star of the show: They scored 51 runs in three games, pounding Southeastern Louisiana 19-7 and Florida State 21-7 before defeating UCLA. Seven lineup regulars were named to the Auburn Regional All-Tournament team, and senior SS Brody Moore was named the tournament MVP after going 8-15 with 6 RBIs, 6 runs scored, 3 walks, and a slash line of .533/.611/.933. Auburn head coach Butch Thompson explained that Moore contributes in a lot of ways that aren’t readily apparent in the box score. 

“Brody’s been steady - it’s a high level of consistency and he is dominating the routine plays. It’s really like having another coach on the field.” Auburn second baseman Cole Foster, who missed two weeks with an oblique injury, was reinserted into the starting lineup for Regionals and had three home runs and nine RBIs in Auburn’s first game, a school single-game postseason record, and finished with a postseason record 12 RBIs. 

Every lineup regular collected multiple hits and scored runs in the tournament, giving Auburn a +33 run differential on the weekend.

Jacob Taylor/Auburn Athletics

As electric as the offense was all weekend, the player of the game in the Regional clincher was pitcher Mason Barnett. A midweek starter most of the season, Barnett was inserted into the weekend rotation after the injury to Hayden Mullins vs Tennessee and threw his best game in the clincher to send Auburn to the Super Regionals. 

Barnett was removed when the game was suspended at 10:42 on Sunday for weather; he had thrown 6.1 innings of one hit, scoreless baseball. His 10 strikeouts were a career high, and when the game was suspended at 11:35, he had thrown 88 pitches (54 strikes) and retired 11 consecutive Bruins. Said Barnett, about being forced from the game by weather. “It was tough. You’re feeling good, you’re making pitches, but you can’t control that. You can only go with what you can control. As long as we win, it doesn’t really matter.”

His curveball, in particular, was devastatingly effective. It had a true 12-6 break, so breaking straight down versus on an angle, and therefore was able to give fits to both left and right-handed hitters. It paired well with the fastball, which came in about 95-96 with late carry in the zone which prevented hitters from making solid contact and kept the defense busy with weak fly balls, slow grounders, and lazy pop ups to field.

Said Thompson of Barnett’s performance in the clinching game: “I really think it was Mason’s best outing, of his career. One, that speaks to development, and that's true development. When you see someone not only start for you in a regional championship game but give you the best they’ve ever given you, THAT’S development.”

Thompson also let on about a mechanical tweak they implemented in game: “When he went back out for the fourth inning and I asked him to start from the stretch. The walks went away, they were not on the fastball anymore, and he absolutely rolled (through) the fourth, fifth, into that sixth inning. He competed the whole time, it’s just that 2nd, 3rd inning, guys were in scoring position with no outs.”

Thompson, seemingly acknowledging the multiple scouts in attendance, noted that the talent has always been there for Barnett, “His stuff’s electric; he has the metrics of a Major League pitcher. Of the four pitches he showed last night: a changeup, a slider, the big curveball that everybody can notice, and then a mid-90s fastball. It’s nice to see him, as he’s probably a ‘draft and move on’, do nothing but cement himself in that outing, at this time, on that stage, with that kind of development and I couldn’t be happier for Mason.”

© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

But before we can get to the MLB Draft, Auburn’s still focused on a goal: “It’s National Championship or Bust” said Thompson in postgame media availability. “If you play the ‘just get to Omaha’ game, you're gonna go 0-2. At some point in time, you have to move your program to start really envisioning it. People don’t fail because they aim high and miss, they fail because they aim low and hit. I need to make sure I don’t underscore the potential of this team.” 

He explained that it’s his obligation to aim high. “If I represent Auburn University, and I’ve got a team that just played like that this weekend, for me to not aim high and have our guys start envisioning a National Championship, I’m selling our people short and potentially our program short.”

© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

He expounded on why he believes this Auburn squad can win the whole dang thing. 

“I think about what it takes to win a National Championship: We got a catcher (Nate LaRue) that can throw a baseball as good as anybody I’ve ever seen - his arm is a part of the game and can impact it. We got a first baseman (Sonny DiChiara) that is absolutely a threat - they gotta figure out if they’re going to pitch to him or else what to do with him, and I can see them start to do it when they’re two or three batters away. Getting Cole Foster back at 2nd base was absolutely instrumental. We just talked about Brody - (3B Blake) Rambusch is going to close in on 100 hits here soon. Kason Howell, defensively. Bobby Pierce, hitting behind Sonny. Mike Bello, man! You’ve got a freshman just sitting there, competing his heart out, and every time he gets on base he flips that lineup over and gets you right back.”

One of the advantages Thompson addressed over the weekend is Auburn’s ability to get offensive contributions from typical defensive positions - catcher, shortstop, and centerfield. Those three players, C Nate LaRue, SS Brody Moore, and CF Kason Howell combined to go 15-36 with 14 runs scored, 13 RBIs, 3 HRs, and 12 walks while providing the expected exemplary defense.

© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

All-Regional Team

P: Mason Barnett (Auburn)

P: Kelly Austin (UCLA)

P: Joseph Gonzalez (Auburn)

C: Nate LaRue (Auburn)

1B: Sonny DiChiara (Auburn)

2B: Cole Foster (Auburn)

3B: Kyle Karros (UCLA)

SS: Brody Moore (Auburn)

OF: Mike Bello (Auburn)

OF: Kason Howell (Auburn)

OF: Carson Yates (UCLA)

DH: Brooks Carlson (Auburn)

MVP: Brody Moore (Auburn)

© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

Scouting the Super Regionals

With Monday’s 7-6 win over Vanderbilt, the Oregon State Beavers have won the Corvallis Regional and will host Auburn for a three-game set Friday, June 10 through Sunday, June 12 OR Saturday, June 11 through Monday, June 13. Oregon State (46-16, 20-10) had a great season in the Pac-12, including a one week stint as national #1 after Tennessee dropped a series at Kentucky. 

After a cold end to the season, where they dropped their last two series at Arizona and home vs UCLA, Oregon State stormed through the inaugural Pac-12 Tournament, scoring 53 runs in five games and losing a heartbreaker to Stanford to finish in 2nd place. They were awarded the #3 National seed in the postseason, and hosted New Mexico State, San Diego, and Vanderbilt in their region.

On the season, Oregon State is top quartile in the nation with a batting average of .298 but is a top 20 team in on-base percentage with a .410, fueled by their Top 5 rating in walks - they’ve drawn 370 walks in 62 games, good for 3rd in the country. Offensively, they have a similar profile to Auburn when it comes to power - mid .450s in slugging percentage, with one noteworthy slugger with double digit home runs - Jacob Melton with 15 for Oregon State, Sonny DiChiara with 20 for Auburn - and multiple players in the high single digits. 

The extra base runners created by the high walk numbers allow Oregon State to be more aggressive on the basepaths - they have four players in the double digits for steals, led by Justin Boyd’s 24 steals in 30 attempts. It’s a speedy, efficient lineup that specializes in putting balls in play to stress the defense and uses the running game to take pitchers out of their rhythm.

On the mound, the Beavers are led by LHP Cooper Hjerpe. The draft-eligible sophomore, expected to be the first collegiate pitcher off the board in this year’s MLB Draft, has thrown 95.2 innings on the season with a 2.45 ERA and 150 strikeouts to only 20 walks. He averaged almost 6 innings per start, setting a team record with 17 strikeouts in an eight-inning against Stanford on April 1st. Pronounced “jerpy”, Hjerpe is nominated for both the Golden Spikes Award and the Dick Howser Trophy, as one of college baseball’s best players in 2022. 

The lefty features a mid-90s fastball from a lower release height paired with a hellaciously sweeping slider that generates swings and misses and has MLB scouts drooling over the potential to be one of the best sliders in the organization that drafts him from day one. His changeup is solid to above-average, and this all comes from a deceptively unique profile that’s hard to prepare and difficult to face.

Both teams are top ten in defense, with Oregon State’s .983 fielding percentage six spots ahead of Auburn’s .981. It’s a fundamentally sound way of playing baseball that should prove to be a very close, interesting matchup. 

© Jake Crandall / USA TODAY NETWORK

The Auburn Tigers travel to Corvallis, Oregon to take on the Oregon State Beavers this weekend. The matchup, to take place either Friday, June 10 through Sunday, June 12 OR Saturday, June 11 through Monday, June 13 and is expected to be televised and will be available for streaming on ESPN+, and the radio call, with Voice of the Tigers Andy Burcham and producer Brad Law, can be heard locally on 93.9 FM and online on the Auburn Sports Network. 

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