AUBURN, Ala. — After using dominant pitching to win the first two games of the series, the Mississippi State baseball team broke out the bats Sunday afternoon.
MSU had a season-high 19 hits and finished a three-game sweep of Auburn with 12-1 victory at Plainsman Park. The Bulldogs broke open a tight game by scoring eight times in the seventh inning.
MSU improved to 31-18 and 14-10 in the Southeastern Conference, while Auburn dropped to 25-23 and 9-15. The Bulldogs enter the final two weeks of the regular season in sole possession of second place in the Western Division, one game out of first place.
“I really felt good about the kids going into the weekend,” MSU coach John Cohen said. “They were so focused. Film, practice, whatever it was. Honestly, that was not the case all year, and that is my fault. But I really love where we are. I wish we were playing (today) because we are really locked in on the task at hand like we need to be.”
The sweep was MSU’s first of Auburn since 2011. It also was the school’s first sweep on the Plains since an abbreviated two-game series sweep in 1998. The Bulldogs have recorded back-to-back sweeps on the road, and have won eight straight games away from Dudy Noble Field.
The Bulldogs secured their fifth conference series win of the year with dominant pitching. Using eight pitchers, the Bulldogs held the Tigers to 13 hits and one run in the series. Auburn snapped a 24-inning scoreless streak in the seventh when freshman Daniel Robert hit his first career home run. By that time, the Bulldogs batted 13 players and scored eight times in the top half of the inning.
“We have not had a ton of big innings,” Cohen said. “If you study the SEC, no one is having big innings. Today we really allowed the big inning to happen. You have to be patient and you have to hit line drives. When you have 19 hits, you are fortunate. That means we hit some line drives that didn’t find gloves. It was really good to see the kids rewarded because they were taking some really good at-bats today.”
After winning the first two games in the series by 3-0 scores, the Bulldogs built the same lead Sunday with a Gavin Collins home run in the second and a sacrifice fly from Wes Rea and a single by Matthew Britton in the fourth.
Sophomore right-hander Preston Brown (4-1) parlayed the early offense to a victory. Brown worked five-plus innings, allowing two hits and walking one. Jacob Lindgren worked the Bulldogs out of a tight spot in the sixth in relief of Brandon Woodruff, who followed Brown. With the bases loaded, Lindgren got a strikeout and fly out to end that threat.
“Preston threw about 70 pitches and was very effective,” Cohen said. “We just need him to get ahead on more counts. (Lindgren) did what he always does. He got batters out with his breaking ball in a real tight spot. Thank goodness we scored runs and could get him back out of the game since he threw so much Friday.”
In the seventh inning, Brett Pirtle had two RBI singles, Cody Brown had an RBI single, Alex Detz had an RBI double, Britton had a three-run double to right center, and C.T. Bradford had a sacrifice fly.
Pirtle, Collins, Reid Humphreys, and Britton each had three hits for the Bulldogs. Cody Brown added two. Myles Gentry and Ben Bracewell completed the game on the mound for MSU.
Michael O’Neal (3-5) took the loss for Auburn. Robert had two hits for the Tigers.
MSU will play host to Tennessee this weekend. The teams will meet at 6:30 p.m. Friday, at 6 p.m. Saturday (Comcast Sports Network), and at 1:30 p.m. Sunday (CBS Sports Network).
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.