College students, get a year of HawgBeat coverage for just $11.95! Request details via email from your school account (.edu) to andrewhutchinson413 (at) gmail (dot) com.
A day after Arkansas used the long ball to pull off a comeback, Auburn turned to small ball to win a tight game Saturday night and even the series.
Pinch hitter Mason Land laid down a bunt that brought home the go-ahead run in the eighth inning of the Tigers’ 5-3 win over the Razorbacks at Plainsman Park, setting up a massive rubber match with SEC West and postseason implications.
“That game went down to the wire,” head coach Dave Van Horn said. “We got the leadoff man in the top of the eighth and didn’t advance him. That was a little disappointing. Then they obviously came back and beat us.
“It was a good job for the most part by our bullpen. We held them down. They got six hits on the day and we only got three, but we had a chance to score some runs and we didn’t.”
Arkansas actually took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the seventh, but that lasted for just two batters.
After getting Cole Foster to pop out in foul territory to start the inning, marking the seventh straight batter he retired, Zebulon Vermillion gave up a solo home run to Blake Rambusch.
It was just the fourth long ball of the season for the third baseman, but it was the Tigers’ third of the game and tied it up 3-3.
“He was throwing his fastball and his breaking ball for a strike,” Van Horn said. “Then he goes out and gets the first out there in the seventh and then he got behind the hitter 2-0 and he threw a fastball.
“It wasn’t, actually, right down the middle. It was kind of middle away and he was just trying to go the other way, the wind was blowing that way and he hit it and it just rode out of here.”
Vermillion gave up another hit before being pulled in favor of Brady Tygart. It was a surprising move to go to his closer so early, but Van Horn said he wanted the right-hander to face Sonny DiChiara — rather than usual set-up man and left-hander Evan Taylor — because the Golden Spikes frontrunner was hitting .500/.650/1.214 against lefties.
The move paid off, as Tygart got him to look at strike three. He followed that by striking out Bobby Peirce to strand the go-ahead run on base.
The Razorbacks squandered Kendall Diggs’ leadoff hit by pitch and then things went awry in the bottom of the eighth.
Tygart struck out the leadoff man and got ahead of Brooks Carlson 0-2 before throwing four straight balls. Brody Moore was next up and singled into right-center to put runners on the corners.
At that point, Auburn brought Land — a .176 hitter — off the bench to pinch hit. He took a ball before squaring and bunting the second pitch. Tygart fielded it, but his throw home missed catcher Michael Turner by quite a bit.
“It really wasn’t a very good bunt,” Van Horn said. “(Tygart) spun and made a wild throw. Just kind of rushed it — and he had to rush — but if he makes the throw, he’s out at the plate.”
The throw was so wild that it also allowed the other runners to move up a base, setting up Foster’s sacrifice fly that gave the Tigers a much-needed insurance run.
Those two runs — only one of which was earned — snapped Tygart’s streak of 12 2/3 scoreless innings. The last time he gave up a run was at Florida on April 9, nearly a month ago.
