Auburn faces top-seed Stanford in a College World Series elimination game

The Tigers have faced Stanford four times in CWS history and never beaten them.

Auburn's backs are against the wall. Lose, and you go home. 

There's not much Auburn baseball coach Butch Thompson can do about it, either. Other than deciding when to make a pitching change, he can't make much of an impact on what happens between the chalk lines. He's just working on making sure they stay focused and continue to grind. "Staying in the fight is the message that you would hope this club understands. This is one step at a time. It’s less words and more getting ready to practice and play again. The road has been outlined."

To make the College World Series championship round, Auburn needs to win four games in four days, and they've decided on the rotation to do it. Trace Bright gets the start today against Stanford, followed by Mason Barnett, lefty reliever Carson Skipper, and Joseph Gonzalez.

Bright, the junior from Montgomery, is 4-4 with a 5.27 ERA on the season. He's the only Auburn pitcher who has started in every weekend series, but he's struggled at times. He has two outings of one inning or less, most notably last Saturday against Oregon State in game two of the Corvallis Super Regional. He only made it through 2/3rds of an inning against the Beavers, allowing four runs on three hits and three walks before being lifted for freshman reliever John Armstrong. Auburn would go on to win that game 7-5 after the bullpen gave Auburn 8.1 innings on four hit, one run baseball and Auburn's offense did enough to come back and give closer Blake Burkhalter a lead into the ninth. 

The bullpen continues to be absolutely nails this postseason, with 21 innings pitched, five runs allowed, and eight walks to 29 strikeouts. Burkhalter, Skipper, Armstrong, and Allsup continue to be their reliable selves, as well as Tommy Sheehan and Chase Isbell managing to regain their past form in their recoveries from offseason medical procedures. 

But as good as the bullpen has been to keep Auburn in games, the offense hasn't been able to deliver. Auburn has 22 total hits and 15 runs in those four games, with ten of those hits and seven of those runs coming in the Super Regional opener against Oregon State. In the last three games of postseason play, Auburn's hitters have a batting average of .128 (12-94) with four walks, 27 strikeouts, and a total of eight runs. 

It's a drastic change from Regionals, where Auburn's offense exploded for 51 runs over three games. Sure, Auburn's faced good pitching, with Oregon State's Cooper Hjerpe widely considered a first round MLB Draft prospect this July and Ole Miss's Dylan DeLucia getting late-round draft buzz, especially after his performance to open the College World Series against Auburn.  But so has everyone else, and they've been able to get it done so far. 

The struggles begin at the top for Auburn - after an offensive explosion in Regionals, the top two hitters in the lineup, 3B Blake Rambusch and switch-hitting 2B Cole Foster, have combined to go 2-28 with four runs scored, 2 walks, and 7 strikeouts. Both hits and all four runs were scored by Cole Foster, with Blake Rambusch mired in the first significant 0-fer slump of his Auburn career. If Auburn wants to be successful against Stanford, they need more production from the table-setters in front of slugger and Co-SEC Player of the Year Sonny DiChiara. 

SCOUTING THE CARDINAL

Stanford's offense during the regular season was powered by the long ball, with their team slugging percentage of .540 good for top ten in the country and 2nd in the CWS field behind (now-eliminated) Texas. They hit 1.85 home runs per game, but Omaha's a different kind of offensive scenario: You're facing better pitching, on average, than what you faced in the regular season, and that's before the effects of Charles Schwab Field are factored in. With dimensions of 335/375/408/375/335 from left to right and eight foot fences all around, the cavernous ballpark suppresses home run hitting and forces teams to rely on stringing together hits and utilizing their speed to take extra bases. 

Stanford's offense excels at making quality contact, with only two lineup regulars sporting a batting average below .300 (OF Braden Montgomery and IF Drew Bowser, both with .298s). As a team, they've hit 133 doubles and 18 triples on the season, and sport seven lineup regulars with an OPS over .930.

They're led statistically, depending on the measure, by junior infielder Brett Barrera (.353 BA), sophomore infielder Carter Graham (22 HRs), or junior catcher Kody Huff (21 doubles), but the true heart and soul of this lineup is center fielder Brock Jones. Widely considered to be a 1st round draft pick in the upcoming 2022 MLB Draft this July, Jones leads the team in OPS (1.123), OBP (.452), slugging (.671), runs scored (77), total bases (167), and stolen bases (15, in 20 attempts). The lefty typically leads off for Stanford and can cause opposing pitchers fits from the first pitch of the game. Trace Bright and the Auburn staff need to come out hot, because there's not a place in this lineup where you can relax and catch your breath - they come out swinging early and often. 

Pitching-wise, Stanford is believed to be starting junior Quinn Mathews. 9-1 w/ a 2.62 ERA, the lefty has been sensational this season, averaging almost 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings and is currently in a nine-game winning streak. He's thrown 96.1 innings on the season with 110 strikeouts to 47 walks. Scouting reports on Mathews discuss his changing pitching approaches, sometimes working backwards (starting with offspeed early and moving to fastballs late in the count) and sometimes following a standard pitching approach. He doesn't have overpowering velocity, sitting 89-92 on his fastball, but he has good velocity separation on his changeup (78-80) and a good slider (78-81) that all disguises well. It's a tall order, but the pitches are hittable if you're able to keep your hands back to catch up to the fastball while using his fringe-to-average command against him and allowing the slider to drift out of the zone for balls. 

Mathews has shown an ability to go deep into games, with eight outings of 6 innings or more and eight outings of 100+ pitches, most notably an April 3rd matchup against Oregon State where he went 7 innings of 3 hit, 1-ru ball with 4 walks to 11 strikeouts in 120 pitches - significant because he had thrown a inning of relief to earn the save just two days earlier in game one of the same series. 

UPDATE (12:02 PM) Stanford is starting lefty Drew Dowd. 6-0 on the season with a 4.79 ERA, he's thrown 71.1 innings on the season with 33 walks and 71 strikeouts. The sophomore has only broken 100 pitches once on the season, throwing 109 pitches in an losing effort against Arizona on March 21st. 

He's a competitive lefty with a 3-pitch mix - FB sits 87-89, late life and ride in the zone. Big slurvy-curveball that's a weapon against lefties, which we don't have a lot of in the lineup. He'll throw it early in the count against righties to try and get ahead, but it usually misses low and gloveside to a righty. Throws the changeup outside a lot, with late diving action. Mixes them well, but isn't pinpoint with any of them and frequently gets behind in the count because of it. 

There's strong belief internally that Auburn can hit him, as well as do enough on the mound to contain their offense. It's going to come down to Auburn's bats today. 

PAST HISTORY

Auburn has faced Stanford four times in College World Series history, and is 0-4. The two teams faced off twice in the 1967 College World Series (6-3, 5-3) and twice more in the 1997 College World Series (8-3, 11-4) , with Stanford eliminating Auburn fro both tournaments. Stanford has outscored Auburn 30-13 in the four games.

HOW TO WATCH

Auburn faces Stanford in a College World Series elimination game Monday at 1PM Central. The game is being televised on ESPN and broadcast on Channel 84 on Sirius XM as well as the radio call, with Voice of the Tigers Andy Burcham and producer Brad Law, being available on AuburnTigers.com and locally on 93.9 FM.  

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