The No. 23 Alabama baseball team dropped to a 19-8 record on Sunday after losing to rival Auburn 7-1 in the last of a three-game series. The Tigers had little trouble with the Tide thanks in large to the play of Auburn’s Grant Dayton. Head coach Mitch Gaspard said the Auburn pitcher had a profound impact on Sunday’s game.
“Grant Dayton did a great job for them today,” Gaspard said. “He kind of shackled our offense all day long. I thought he did a really good job of bringing fastballs on the outer half of the plate. We really never made the adjustment to go the other way and back up the middle.”
Dayton pitched seven innings, allowing seven hits, one run, six strikeouts and no walks. For Auburn’s head coach John Pawlowski, Dayton’s performance was critical in keeping the Tide from getting into an offensive rhythm.
“He’s one of those guys that just goes out there and pounds the zone with strikes,” Pawlowski said. “I thought overall that was our most complete defensive game that we’ve had. We’ve struggled a little bit defensively, but we made some good plays, and we’re fortunate to at least get one up here this weekend.”
Auburn got on the scoreboard first thanks to a solo homerun shot by Justin Bryant, but Tide freshman pitcher Taylor Wolfe would bounce back striking out Kevin Patterson to get the Tide off the field in the second inning.
The Tigers’ batters did not let up as Creede Simpson and Patterson added a solo homerun each in the third and fourth inning to extend Auburn’s lead to 3-0 by the fourth inning.
“Overall, I thought we swung the bat real well,” Patterson said. “Getting a win today is huge for our team. It gets the momentum going. We had a good weekend offensively, came up a little short yesterday [Saturday], and today we put some good swings on the ball.”
Alabama had trouble matching Auburn’s offensive production all game as the Tide managed to score only one run on seven hits. The one run Alabama scored came in the seventh thanks to a RBI double by Jake Kelton.
“Offensively, we have to get better,” Gaspard said. “We have to start making more adjustments. You can’t execute everyday when you get behind three or four runs. That’s when you got to drive the ball the other way; you have to put an offense together.”
Despite the loss, Alabama got the series win with a 6-5 win Saturday and a 10-5 win on Friday. While a series win is good, sophomore Taylor Dugas said it doesn’t make up for Sunday’s results.
“We’re excited that we came out with a majority of the series,” Dugas said. “It’s disappointing that we didn’t play very well today, and we would have liked to play better.”
Alabama will be playing two midweek games, with the first against UAB at home on Tuesday at 6:35 p.m and the second against Jacksonville State on the road Wednesday.
