Auburn’s Pitching Staff Holds the Key to Omaha

The Auburn Tigers are off to Super Regionals for the second season in a row. 

The team barely escaped their regional at Plainsman Park after an early upset loss to Milwaukee on Friday, but ran the gauntlet and was the final team standing in double elimination. They will now host Ole Miss in a best-of-three game series with a chance to go to Omaha and the College World Series. 

If the team wants to get past the Rebels, who were one of the few SEC teams the Tigers didn't face in the regular season, they will need to avoid an early implosion like the one that happened in game one of the regionals, and that means the pitching needs to be firing on all cylinders. 

To avoid elimination, head coach Butch Thompson only used 5 pitchers for the last 3 games of the weekend, spanning 27 innings of baseball. And he might take that same approach to get past Ole Miss. 

Jake Marciano and LJ Cormier struggled in the first game of the regionals, but bounced back with vengeance over the final few games to help them move on and get to the next round. Cormier set a career record with eight strikeouts on only 60 pitches across 5 innings on Sunday, and Marciano set the tone in Monday's regional final. 

They will need both pitchers to maintain that same intensity and confidence level heading into the series vs. Ole Miss. Likely, we won't see Marciano until game 2 or 3 of the series, but Cormier could appear earlier. 

Andrea Alvarez, Alex Petrovic, and Jackson Sander also stepped up in big moments during the regionals, and they need to do the same against Ole Miss. Alvarez and Petrovic each surpassed 100 pitches in their outing, letting Butch only have to rely on his main guys out of the bullpen. 

And finally, Ryan Hetzler was incredible. After picking up a 3-inning save in the first game on Sunday, he turned around and gave four more innings in a crucial game two start. He has allowed only two earned runs since April 26th and has turned into one of the most reliable arms on the roster. 

If all six of Auburn's star pitchers are consistent and bring it this weekend, there will be nothing Ole Miss can do to stop the Tigers from reaching Omaha. 

The pitching staff will have a ton of fan support at Plainsman Park, as the Super Regionals sold out one minute after they went on sale to the public. After recently breaking the park's attendance record, it looks like the record will be broken again this coming weekend. First pitch for game one between Ole Miss and Auburn is scheduled for 7 PM CT on Friday.