Auburn loses game one of the College World Series to Ole Miss
Auburn dropped game one of the College World Series, 5-1, to Ole Miss behind a masterful performance from converted reliever Dylan DeLucia. The junior college transfer, pushed into the starting role midseason due to multiple injuries in the rotation, combined a four-seam fastball with lots of late horizontal life with a sharp-breaking slider that dove away from Auburn’s predominantly right-handed lineup, picking up 10 strikeouts over the contest. He had a perfect game into the 5th inning, and recovered from three straight base hits and a run in the 7th to collect five more outs before finally departing in the 8th at 114 pitches (79 strikes). Outfielder Bobby Pierce, who collected Auburn’s only RBI on an 7th inning single, said DeLucia's ability to throw first-pitch strikes, as well as his breaking ball, were significant. "He was kind of just putting the ball where he wanted to today." Head coach Butch Thompson explained that DeLucia's ball placement was critical, and exact. "He set a slider below us and a fastball above us. He didn't try and trick us too much."
Auburn played from behind all game thanks to some early struggles from starter Joseph Gonzalez. A sinkerballer who uses a slider to keep hitters off balance, he gave up three straight hard hits in the first inning while struggling to control the slider. Coach Butch Thompson confirmed Gonzalez wasn’t getting quite enough downward motion on his pitches. “It's a game of inches sometimes with the sinkerball guys.”
The two runs in the 1st and a solo homerun in the 3rd, all scored with two outs, proved to be more than enough for Ole Miss as Gonzalez recovered to throw deep into the game. Finally being chased by two consecutive baserunners to open the 6th, senior lefthander Carson Skipper came in and minimized the damage, allowing one inherited runner and one other run to score over the next four innings while striking out six. One of this team’s key relievers, Skipper throwing 50 pitches and going 4 innings in a losing effort was a deliberate choice by Thompson: “One, there’s one day off. Also, the importance of a first game. I kept Carson in the game to see if we could catch them late, which we could not.”
Thompson noted that only four of the last 40 CWS winners have lost their opening game in Omaha. Auburn will try to become the fifth, but Thompson acknowledged "it's a tall order."
Ole Miss scored their first three runs and four of their five with two outs, going .357 (5-14) with two outs, while Auburn went only 1-10 with two outs and only recorded 4 total hits in the contest. Thompson knows that it came down to DeLucia having his stuff from the opening pitch, “It just didn’t seem like we were ever able to get in a (hitter’s) count. There just wasn’t those disadvantage counts to do damage.” Ole Miss gave Auburn no help, with thirteen strikeouts and no walks from either DeLucia or reliever Josh Mallitz, the only two pitchers Ole Miss needed.
Over their last 27 postseason innings, a win and two losses, Auburn has only 12 hits and 12 runs, a fact that Thompson is all too aware of. “That’s three games in a row with no offense. We haven’t been able to get in advantageous situations, get the leadoff man on - it just hadn’t happened for us the last couple of games.”
Auburn, one of four national seeds to lose their opening game, now heads to an elimination game on Monday at 1:00PM against Stanford, who lost 17-2 vs Arkansas earlier in the day. Of Auburn's 14 all-time College World Series games, four of them have been against Stanford, with a record of 0-4.
Auburn’s players were insistent that Monday was going to be a different look from an offense who has been quiet for four postseason games now. Said outfielder Bobby Peirce: "We're going to come back fighting. I can promise you we're going to come out Monday fighting."Carson Skipper, representing the pitching staff in postgame, was defiant. "Today wasn't really a true testimony of who we are."
Auburn resumes their journey in the College World Series against Stanford on Monday at 1:00 PM. The game is being broadcast on ESPN and the radio call, with Voice of the Tigers Andy Burcham and producer Brad Law, can be heard online at AuburnTigers.com and locally on 93.9 FM.