Auburn opened its 2024 season with a dominant win over Eastern Kentucky at Plainsman Park, downing the Colonels 17-6 in seven innings. It was Auburn’s eighth Opening Day win in Butch Thompson’s nine seasons and kept the Tigers’ coach perfect in home openers in his career.
“I thought the effort and process was great tonight,” Thompson said. “I thought they were ready to play…I thought they did a pretty good job.”
The Tigers earned the win in front of a record crowd for Opening Day, as 4,403 fans showed up to the ballpark to watch Auburn’s victory. The 1,091 students marked the largest student crowd in program history.
“Getting closer to the game and settling in, you can just feel an environment growing at Plainsman Park,” Thompson said. “I think it was the largest Opening Day crowd that we’ve ever had in the history of Plainsman Park which is awesome and then the most students that’s ever come to a game…”
The Tigers had a big offensive game, scoring 17 runs on 11 hits. Five of the Tigers’ hits went for extra bases, including a pair of home runs by Chris Stanfield in the first inning and Ike Irish in the fourth inning.
“We’ve worked hard to stay with our approach, day in and day out with us,” Stanfield said. “(Thompson)’s always told us process, process, process so, you know, the results show up and you stay with the process.”
The Tigers’ plate discipline paid dividends against the Colonels, with the Tigers taking 12 walks in the game and striking out just four times. Despite the 17-run outburst by the Tigers, they left just six runners on base in the game. Thompson not only credited his batters, but also the consistent strike zone of home plate umpire Hank Himmanen.
“It’ll be good. I mean, really, they had six strikeouts, we had four and in college baseball, really in all of baseball, there’s more swing-and-miss than ever before. Especially for an Opening Day,” Thompson said. “I think we had one of the best home plate umpires in America tonight. And he didn’t let the score dictate whether it was going to be a ball or a strike to try and get out of here.”
Auburn wasted no time getting on the scoreboard, plating four runs in the first inning. Jacksonville State transfer Mason Maners had the Tigers’ first hit of the season with a double and advanced to third base on an Irish single.
A balk brought home Maners for the Tigers’ first run. The big blow in the inning came off the bat of Stanfield, who homered to give the Tigers a four-run lead.
Starting pitcher Chase Allsup alternated dominant frames with tumultuous ones. The first, third and fourth innings were perfect for Allsup. The second and fifth innings were tougher on the Auburn stater. In those two innings alone, Allsup gave up a combined five hits and five runs.
In the second, the long ball gave Allsup trouble as the Colonels hit two homers off of him. In the fifth, Allsup’s fielders did not help him, committing two straight one-out errors to give the Colonels a run.
The Tigers had a swift response in the second, as another balk brought in another Auburn run. Irish then continued his big day by singling up the middle and bringing home two more. In a rare occurrence, Eastern Kentucky starting pitcher Isaac Milburn was charged with four balks in his 1.1 innings of work.
Irish’s big game climaxed in the fourth inning, when he hit a 420-foot homer over the batter’s eye in center field.
“Yeah, that’s got to be the farthest ball I’ve ever hit,” Irish said.
When Allsup was pulled with two outs in the fifth, Tanner Bauman came in for him to get the final out of the inning. Bauman stayed in for the sixth inning, retiring the Colonels in order. Freshman Cam Tilly pitched the seventh, giving up a run on two hits. The three Auburn pitchers combined for just six strikeouts but issued no walks. As Allsup left the game just one out shy of qualifying for the win, Bauman was credited with the win for his perfect 1.1 innings of work.
"I thought Tanner Bauman was my pitcher of the game," Thompson said. "He's a trustworthy guy, he was able to make a pitch to get out of the inning then he throws another clean inning."
Over the final two innings, the Tigers created separation and put the game away early, scoring nine runs in the sixth and seventh innings. In that span, three bases-loaded walks aided the Tigers but the final blow was dealt by shortstop Cooper Weiss, whose three-run double ended the game via mercy rule.
The Tigers will go for a series win on Saturday when they face the Colonels in game two of the season. Joseph Gonzalez will make his much-anticipated season debut for the Tigers, matching up against Eastern Kentucky left-hander Quinton Hall. The first pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. CST and the game will be streamed live on the SEC Network+.
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Matthew is a senior from Huntsville, Alabama, majoring in journalism. He started with The Plainsman in fall 2021.
Twitter: @mattwallaceAU
