For the third time in four NCAA Tournaments, Arkansas will end the 2022 season in Omaha. Standing between it and the College World Series finals are three teams — Stanford, Ole Miss and Auburn.
Before the Razorbacks’ side of the bracket gets underway Saturday, HawgBeat is taking a closer look at all three potential opponents. Next up is SEC West foe Auburn…
Record: 42-20 (16-13 SEC)
Auburn’s 2022 season was one of ups and downs, as it tended to play down to the level of lesser competition at times while showing out in tougher SEC matchups.
Beginning with a defeat in its final non-conference series at the hands of Middle Tennessee, the Tigers dropped the subsequent series to Ole Miss, who was ranked No. 1 in the nation at the time. They then went on to take road series from Texas A&M and LSU on back-to-back weekends before disposing of Vanderbilt at Plainsman Park.
In the weeks leading up to the crucial Arkansas series, the Tigers lost a road series to Mississippi State, swept South Carolina at home and became the second SEC team to take a game from Tennessee despite before taking a close 5-3 loss in the Sunday rubber match.
Trailing the Hogs by three games going into the face-off between divisional foes, Auburn forced a rubber match before losing Game 3 and essentially falling out of the SEC West race.
The Tigers clinched the baseball Iron Bowl series against Alabama in the following weekend with a pair of close victories before having the third game cancelled due to weather.
Looking to end the regular season on a high note against Kentucky, they failed to capitalize on a confidence-building series and lost two of three games to enter the SEC Tournament as the 5 seed.
Faced with a rematch against the Wildcats for its first game in Hoover, Auburn was once again vanquished by Kentucky and given a long break before the NCAA Regionals.
Awarded hosting rights by the committee, the Tigers were a popular pick by many to not make it out of the regional before trouncing the likes of Southeastern Louisiana, Florida State and UCLA by a combined score of 51-18, blasting 11 total home runs and sweeping their way to a Super Regional in Corvallis.
Auburn earned its way to Omaha the hard way, narrowly getting the best of Oregon State in front of its home crowd with a nail-biting 4-3 victory in the winner-take-all finale.
Head Coach: Butch Thompson (7th season)
This is Thompson’s second gig as a collegiate head coach, as he was briefly the head coach at Jefferson State in 1997. He began his role as head coach at Auburn in 2016 after a plethora of assistant roles and did not find immediate success, posting a 23-33 record in his first season.
Since then, he has guided the Tigers to a winning percentage better than .576 in every year besides 2021. Overall, Auburn has gone 221-162 during his tenure and has earned a postseason berth in four of six years — not counting the pandemic-shorted 2020 season.
Thompson has generally made the most of his NCAA Tournament appearances with Auburn, now punching a ticket to Omaha twice and earning a super regional berth in one of the other tries.
This was his most triumphant season in SEC play with the Tigers, battling their way to a 16-13 record, which is the best among any of his teams. It was only the second time Auburn has finished above .500 in conference play with him at the helm.
College World Series History
This will be Auburn’s sixth appearance in Omaha, but it has yet to make too much noise in any of the previous trips.
Starting with their first crack at the College World Series in 1967 — which was only the second time any Auburn team qualified for the NCAA Tournament — the Tigers won a pair of games before getting eliminated by Stanford. Those two wins still stand as the most won by Auburn in any of its appearances.
The Tigers proceeded to go 0-2 in each of their next two tries before finally winning a game in the 1997 College World Series with a team that featured current Chicago Cubs manager David Ross and Auburn pitching coach Tim Hudson.
That lone victory was the most recent for Auburn in Omaha, as it went 0-2 in 2019 to bring the program’s overall record to 3-10 at the College World Series.
Projected Starters
NOTE: This is the lineup Auburn used during the Corvallis Super Regional. It’s worth noting the Tigers had a good amount of lineup turnover throughout the season and seem to be comfortable slotting in several other players as needed. Bryson Ware played in 48 games this season and posted a .226/.330/.387 slash line. He seems to be the go-to pinch-hitting option. Cam Hill also played in 39 games and put up a .280/.361/.374 slash. There are also four other players on the roster not previously mentioned who have made at least 22 appearances in 2022.
Projected Starting Rotation
Auburn lost its ace in Hayden Mullins one weekend before playing Arkansas and has gone with some combination of Bright, Gonzalez and Barnett since.
Barnett was the arm who started series openers through the end of conference play, but Bright and Gonzalez have been the 1-2 punch in postseason play.
Bright has not taken advantage of his new role as postseason ace and could see his job handed off to either of the other two starters. If Thompson uses the same rotation he’s gone with in the past few weeks, it’s Bright’s ball against Ole Miss.
Beginning with Auburn’s one-and-done in the SEC Tournament, Bright lasted 2 2/3 innings before getting yanked in Hoover. He managed to get through five innings against Southeastern Louisiana in the Tigers’ opening game of the Auburn Regional, but surrendered four runs. He then had his worst outing of the season in the first game of the Corvallis Super Regional, recording only two outs while giving up four runs on three hits and three walks.
Gonzalez has the best numbers among the starting trio, but tends to get his starts on the back end of the rotation.
He was solid in his pair of postseason appearances, allowing three runs in six innings of work against Florida State and two runs in five innings to Oregon State.
He is more of a throwback in terms of pitching style, utilizing a sinker as his primary pitch and allowing batters to put the ball in play with a low exit velocity to record outs. This strategy doesn’t lend itself to strikeouts, as he’s only recorded 47 of those in 73 1/3 innings, but he has a minuscule walk rate at 1.72 free passes per nine innings. Even though his .271 batting average allowed isn’t necessarily desirable, he does a good job at keeping the ball in the park and not having blow-up innings.
Barnett is likely to be the third Tiger to get a start if they aren’t eliminated before his turn.
Since Barnett has fared very well in each of his postseason starts, tossing 5 1/3 scoreless innings against UCLA and 4 1/3 innings while allowing one run in Auburn’s series-opening victory over the Beavers, it’s a possibility he moves up in the rotation.
Although he’s generally been solid, allowing more than three runs in an outing only twice this season, the biggest knock against him is his lack of longevity on the bump. Going more than five innings twice in his 17 appearances, the Tigers usually require a good body of work from the bullpen to seal a win when he gets the ball. That strategy usually works for them, though, as they have posted a 13-4 record in 2022 when he pitches.
Regardless of who Thompson goes with for the Tigers’ first day in Omaha, he has a tough decision to make and each pitcher in the rotation has made a case to be the ace.
Bullpen Arms
The Tigers have used a total of seven arms out of the pen this postseason, but their dominance in the Auburn Regional likely led to a couple arms getting used that are less likely to see the mound in Omaha. The four key bullpen guys are Blake Burkhalter, Chase Allsup, Carson Skipper and John Armstrong.
Burkhalter has emerged as one of the premier closers in the country, as his 15 saves are the most by a wide margin in the SEC and are tied for second nationally. Although he’s been touched up some in postseason play, getting at least one run scored on him in three of four outings, Thompson has a lot of trust in him and will run him out to the mound as many as three times in a weekend. His Achilles’ heel is the long ball, as his nine round trippers allowed in 2022 are the most on the roster.
Allsup is just a freshman, but has played a huge role in Auburn’s stable of arms. His 2.83 ERA is the lowest among pitchers with at least 20 innings and he is one of the more adept at getting batters to whiff with nearly 11 strikeouts per nine innings. A former teammate of Burkhalter at Dothan High School, they are both likely to see important innings in Omaha.
Skipper is the most trusted left-handed option for Thompson and leads the team with 25 appearances out of the bullpen. Even though the length of his outings mostly decreased over the course of the year, he is definitely capable of eating chunks of innings and has gone as long as 5 2/3 this season.
He’s the owner of the best strikeout-to-walk ratio on the team at nearly five whiffs per free pass, but has also struggled with the long ball at times. He’s tied for second most home runs allowed with eight. His worst outing of the season came in the Arkansas series when he allowed five earned runs in just one inning of work.
Armstrong is a freshman who did not have a large body of work over much of the season, making only five appearances in SEC play, but has seen the bump three times this postseason. He hasn’t crossed the 20-inning threshold yet, but has the lowest ERA on the team at 2.50 among arms that have been used for at least 10 innings.
The Stud
Sonny DiChiara is without question the Tigers’ main threat offensively and has provided the bulk of the power in a lineup that has only one player with more than 10 home runs.
Seemingly coming out of nowhere after transferring to The Plains from Sanford, the Golden Spikes Award semifinalist set the league on fire over the course of the year. In the aggregate, he leads the SEC in batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage and walks. He’s also in the top five for home runs and total bases with 22 and 157, respectively.
Although his gaudy numbers tapered off some during conference play, a .337/.544/.728 slash line is nothing to sneeze at.
He is a master of the strike zone, as he walked a whopping 17 more times than he struck out despite finishing second on the team with 51 whiffs. He’s the only Tiger to finish with a positive strikeout-to-walk ratio, as well.
He played a crucial role in Auburn’s defeat of Oregon State in the Corvallis Super Regional, mashing a dinger in each of its victories against the stingy Beaver pitching staff.
The other half of the “Thunder and Lightning” duo is Blake Rambush, who has also been a pest in the box all season. The leadoff man finished sixth in the SEC with 86 hits, tied for third with 16 stolen bases and tied for fourth with 15 hit by pitches.
Redshirt junior Bobby Peirce is the biggest power threat in the lineup outside of DiChiara, as he is the only other bat to post an OPS north of .900. His nine homers are tied with Cole Foster for second on the squad, but Peirce has the edge in total extra-base hits and speed. Not an every day starter throughout the whole regular season, he’s riding a 15-game on-base streak that dates back to the Arkansas series.
Regular-Season Meeting
The Hogs and Tigers met at Plainsman Park in early May for a matchup between two SEC West heavyweights and Arkansas came out on top after taking the series opener and the rubber match.
Coming into the weekend, many were questioning Arkansas’ ability to hit the baseball following a series loss to Texas A&M, narrow victory over Ole Miss and midweek loss to Missouri State. The Razorbacks responded with 23 total runs over the three games, which was the most they had scored in a three-game set since putting up 23 against Mississippi State more than a month before.
Sophomore Jaxon Wiggins had one of his better outings of the season in the crucial rubber match, allowing a lone run in five innings of work while striking out six, walking two and allowing four hits.
Sophomore Cayden Wallace put together a solid weekend, notching five hits and driving in three on nine total bases. Super senior Braydon Webb was also successful in the box, picking up four hits and scoring four runs, three of which came in the series finale. Junior Robert Moore had one of his best weekends of 2022, tying a season high with four hits and drove in five with eight total bases.
Here are our key takeaways from each of those games…
