One comfortable win was not enough for Auburn. After handling Indiana 8-4 on Friday, the Tigers remained focused and took down the Hoosiers a second time on Saturday, 6-1 and improved on the season to 2-0.
A complete team effort from Butch Thompson’s squad led Auburn to the win as it clinched the series over Indiana.
Junior right-hander Joseph Gonzalez got the day-two start for Auburn and delivered with a dominant performance as he recorded his first win of the season. The pitcher from Puerto Rico was a reliable weapon for the Tigers last season — finishing the season with a 3.22 ERA and appearing four times for Auburn in the postseason and proved to be consistent once again.
After allowing a leadoff single to open the game, Gonzalez retired nine consecutive batters. Through three innings, Gonzalez only threw 26 pitches.
“I felt really good. I was focusing on hitting the strike zone and just trusting my defense,” Gonzalez said.
That streak of nine consecutive batters faced without allowing a hit was broken in the fourth inning after a leadoff double, but Gonzalez settled in and retired the next three batters.
Gonzalez pitched the fifth inning perfectly as well and ended the game with five innings pitched, two hits and one strikeout while throwing just 41 pitches with 32 being strikes.
“Joseph did great today,” said left fielder Bobby Peirce. “Threw 50 pitches in five innings, it’s one of the better outings I’ve seen for somebody that hasn’t really thrown that much like it was awesome.”
True freshman Ike Irish entered his second game as a Tiger fresh off an impressive debut where the lefty recorded three hits. Irish kept up his solid at-bats by drawing a walk in the first inning, then driving in two runs with a double hit into left-center field to open the scoring for Auburn.
Peirce kept the scoring going when he drove home Bryson Ware and Brody Wortham with a two-RBI single to give Auburn a 4-0 lead in the fourth inning. The redshirt senior from Arizona starred at the plate with three hits and three RBI in five at-bats.
“Your best players need to play well,” Thompson said. “And Bobby was absolutely in that today with three big hits and just when you do it on both sides of the ball.”
Things got shaky for the Tigers in the sixth inning when Indiana loaded the bases against Tommy Sheehan who came on in relief of Gonzalez. Sheehan’s day ended after recording just one out, walking two batters and hitting another.
Chase Isbell took over for Sheehan in the bases-loaded jam and got Auburn out of a potential disaster by striking out the first batter he faced and forcing the other into a fly out.
Thompson called Isbell’s clutch pitching the “biggest competitive moment of the ball game.”
“Indiana was right where they wanted to be in the lineup… He (Isbell) set a slider on the first guy and was able to get a strikeout,” Thompson said.
Isbell surrendered one run in the seventh inning but thanks to an RBI from Peirce and Cole Foster the inning before, Auburn still held a comfortable 6-1 lead.
While Thompson would have liked to keep Isbell from pitching 1.2 innings, he was committed to clinching the series in game two instead of during the series finale.
“Our whole deal is circling around winning the series,” Thompson said. “So when you’re up in a ball game, you got to do everything that you can to try to win a series.”
Tommy Vail, a left-handed pitcher from TCU, entered the game after Isbell and recorded the final six outs for Auburn.
Auburn faces Indiana again on Sunday at 1 p.m. CST where freshman Drew Nelson will get the start. The game will be televised on SEC Network+.
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Jacob Waters is a junior majoring in journalism. From Leeds, Alabama, he started with The Plainsman in fall 2021.
Twitter: @JacobWaters_
