Last night, the No. 23 Auburn Tigers, led by the strong pitching presence of Samuel Dutton and Carson Myers, beat the No. 13 Vanderbilt Commodores 6-2 in the first game of a three-game series this weekend.
Together, pitchers Dutton and Myers held the Commodores scoreless for eight of the nine innings. Vanderbilt started off the game hitting quite well, hitting a two-run home run in the third inning and tallying four hits in their first three at-bats. However, Dutton and Myers proved to be quite the dynamic duo, giving up only two hits the rest of the game and keeping Vanderbilt scoreless. Dutton threw six strikeouts on 93 pitches, while Myers threw five strikeouts on 25 pitches.
“(Dutton) showed a ton of maturity,” head coach Butch Thompson said. “He gave up the home run, but our offense was right there for him. They responded and had his back. He had all of his pitches working. I just saw maturity flow over, and he continued to do a nice job.
“Myers was unhittable in the eighth,” Thompson added. “He helped us get to the finish line and not have to bring in another piece to try to finish it. He just did an amazing job.”
Dutton (3-1) pitched a career-high 7.0 innings and retired 14 of the last 17 batters he faced from the end of the third inning through the rest of his outing. Myers then entered to start the eighth inning and struck out the side on 10 pitches before shutting the door in the ninth.
“The main thing was throwing strikes, competing and getting outs,” Dutton said. “It felt great. I went out there and just trusted what I had done in the fall and in the spring. Everything that I had prepared for, I just let it take control out there.”
While the pitching and defense held their own, the offense produced six runs on eight hits, five of which came in the third inning, thanks to four two-strike hits to go along with a hit-by-pitch and a walk. Six of the team’s eight hits in the game came with two strikes, resulting in just three strikeouts.
“I did not know until I got the box score that we only struck out three times,” Thompson said. “We didn’t score every inning because that’s a really good ballclub that we’re facing, but to only strike out three times tells you the commitment to each at-bat, and the two-strike hitting was amazing in that five-run inning.”
Bub Terrell and Eric Guevara hit back-to-back singles and Bristol Cater was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Terrell scored the first run on a wild pitch, and Eric Snow drew a walk to reload the bases. Cooper McMurray tied the game with a sacrifice fly, and Deric Fabian gave the Tigers the lead with a two-RBI double down the right field line. Chase Fralick then battled with two strikes and two outs, sending an RBI single through the left side of a shifted infield to score Fabian and make it 5-2.
“We just got hits in big situations,” Terrell said. “As a team, we just rely on each other and rack up good at-bats. We just trust one another.”
Already leading by three, Auburn manufactured one more run in the sixth inning off Vanderbilt reliever Alex Kranzler. Chris Rembert started the inning with a single, stole second, advanced to third on a ground ball to the right side by Terrell, and scored on a grounder to third by Guevara.
Game two in this weekend’s Tigers vs Commodores series is now on Saturday, March 15, at 11 am CST. The game will be available to stream on the SEC Network.
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Jackie is a freshman majoring in Drug and Biopharmaceutical Sciences. She started with The Plainsman in fall 2024.
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