Walk-off win not enough for Auburn baseball to avoid series loss to Georgia

AUBURN — Butch Thompson thought his daughter's car had been stolen.

It wasn't parked outside the house when the Auburn baseball coach woke up early Wednesday morning to go recruiting, so even though she was sleeping in during summer break after her freshman year of college, he immediately woke her up.

"She was like, 'Dad, my car is at your office,'" he said. That's exactly where they left it there after Tuesday's home game against UAB.

The point of that story, Thompson said Thursday, is that young people are very aware of what's going on around them, maybe even more aware than he is. That includes his players. He discusses with them where they stand in the postseason picture on a weekly basis but admits he may not need to — they probably already know exactly where they are.

Going into this weekend, that was 29-19 overall, 12-12 in the SEC, No. 17 in RPI and No. 4 in strength of schedule. That put the Tigers in great position to make a third straight NCAA Tournament appearance for the first time since 2001-03, but didn't quite guarantee their entry — they still needed a few more wins to feel fully secure.

That's what might make Saturday feel like such a missed opportunity. Auburn lost the first game in its series with Georgia, 11-2, on Friday night, but won the first game of a doubleheader, 4-3, on a Conor Davis walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th inning and climbed back from five runs down to tie the second at seven runs apiece in the bottom of of the seventh.

Had the bullpen been able to keep the game there, Auburn might have been able to come back from one game down take a series from the No. 7-ranked team in the country and enter the final weekend of the regular season at LSU one game over .500 in league play. It may have even given Thompson's team a realistic chance to host an NCAA Regional despite a midseason swoon.

Instead, senior Blake Schilleci surrendered a two-out, three-run home run to Cam Shepherd in the top of the eighth inning. Georgia won the second half of the doubleheader 10-8 and the series two games to one.

"Our players really wanted to have success against a great, great ball club this late in the year," Thompson said. "But we are at a time in the year where there's no moral victories. We'll fight like this next week."

It's not necessarily a bad series loss, even if it was just the team's third in its last 18 at Plainsman Park. The Bulldogs (39-14, 18-9 SEC) have the second-best record in the SEC and are a legitimate candidate to earn a national seed, and the Tigers (30-21, 13-14) were in prime position to win the weekend even after losing in convincing fashion Friday, when starter Jack Owen gave up more runs in the fourth inning alone (six) than he had in his previous 42 1/3 this season (four).

Auburn's victory in the middle game offered plenty of reason for optimism — ace right-hander Tanner Burns allowed three runs on six hits over 5 2/3 innings (marking the first time an Tigers starter has pitched more than five innings since April 13 at Texas A&M); closer Cody Greenhill struck out five over four scoreless innings out of the bullpen (his longest outing of the season); and Davis played the hero yet again.

The junior's rocket single off the wall in left field, which scored Judd Ward from third base, was his second walk-off hit this season and third in his three-year career — Davis hit a three-run home run to beat South Carolina on April 2, 2017, then a walk-off single to beat Ole Miss in the 10th inning on April 20 of this year.

"Pretty happy to see him at the plate in that moment," Thompson said of Davis, who leads the team with a .306 batting average to go along with six home runs and 31 RBIs. "I thought that was huge for Conor."

Auburn's offense came through with some similar heroics in the second half of the doubleheader, but it was always to dig out of a hole, not take a lead over a Georgia team that played ahead nearly throughout after a first-inning three-run home run from Aaron Schunk off freshman Richard Fitts, who has given up at least that many runs in five of his last six outings.

Matt Scheffler hit a two-run double and Rankin Woley a two-run single in the bottom of the sixth inning, and Scheffler an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh, but it only tied the game. Ryan Watson let the Bulldogs extend their lead to 7-2 on a pair of singles in the top of the sixth, and Schilleci surrendered what proved to be the decisive three-run blast in the top of the eighth.

"Do we want to burn to death or freeze to death?" Thompson said of managing a struggling bullpen that did not have Greenhill available after he threw nearly 50 pitches in Game 1. "Shoulda, coulda, woulda; that's kind of been the fate."

At the end of the day, its only one loss. But it does put more pressure on Auburn to win two out of three at LSU next week in order to reach Thompson's target .500 record in conference play going into the SEC Tournament.

Still, as the coach outlined before the series, his players probably already know exactly what they need to do in the final week of the regular season, which begins with a home finale against North Alabama on Tuesday.

"The guys battled for 18 innings," Thompson said. "We'll keep fighting."

Josh Vitale is the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. You can follow him on Twitter at @JoshVitale. To reach him by email, click here.