A crowd of 3,019 watched as Justin Camp set personal records while leading Auburn to a 7-0 victory over the Jaguars Saturday at Plainsman Park. This was the Tigers' second straight win of the series.
“Just a clean game, a good baseball game,” Auburn coach Butch Thompson said.
Camp (1-0), a fifth-year senior, earned the win for the Tigers and threw a career-high 8.0 innings and struck out a career-high nine batters.
“I think it always starts on the mound … a fifth-year senior with a lot of maturity went out there and handled the ball really good,” Thompson said.
The newly transitioned starting pitcher, Camp only allowed two hits. After allowing a leadoff single in the second, he retired 16 straight until his second allowed hit in the eighth inning.
“Instead of just fastball, fastball, he added a bit of a sinker to his repertoire that really got a ton of ground balls,” Thompson said.
Twelve groundouts, with one occurring in a double play, to be exact.
Camp said he worked on his sinker during his bullpen this week after volunteer assistant coach Greg Drye asked him what pitch he would throw if he “had to get a ground ball.”
“I’ve always thrown it … but I kind of took it out of my pitches,” Camp said. “I worked on it in my bullpen and it was something I could keep down in the zone.”
Thompson said Camp was able to execute the pitch to get outs if he “got down in the count to end the at bat.”
Junior Gordon Cardenas came in to relieve Camp in the ninth, tossing a 1-2-3 inning to end the game.
In addition to a strong pitching performance, Auburn’s offense worked to put themselves in smart positions to put runs on the board.
“Our guys played offense to manufacture runs,” Thompson said. “We had some unselfish at bats with less than two outs. Getting a fly ball and a sacrifice fly in multiple innings.”
Auburn’s offense scored one run each inning until the sixth, when they scored two.
Daniel Robert hit his first home run of the season in the fourth inning.
The Tigers have now hit home runs in six straight games to open the season. Their longest streak was seven straight in May-June 2010.
Jordan Ebert singled in the first, extending his hitting streak to 10 games dating back to the 2015 season. Ebert also had two RBI.
Joshua Palacios had three hits, including a triple down the right field line in the third inning.
The Tigers and the Jaguars play the final game of the series Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Plainsman Park.
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