AUBURN, Ala. – No. 20 Auburn got back in the win column with a 10-0 victory against Alabama A&M Tuesday night at Plainsman Park.
The shutout was Auburn's second of the season, while the team's 10 runs marks the fourth game this year with double digit runs.
"We built a lead and kept expanding on it," head coach Butch Thompson said. "We have a lot of work to do as a ball club like anybody would this time of the year. It's just coming to the ballpark every day and working. We get another opportunity to do that tomorrow. I just want us to continue to be business-like and try to build some momentum."
Six pitchers combined for the shutout and struck out 10 batter while issuing just one walk. Brooks Fuller (1-0, 0.00) earned the win after tossing 4.0 scoreless innings. Richard Fitts, Carson Skipper, Garrett Wade, Seb Thomas and Mason Barnett followed Fuller with a scoreless inning apiece.
"My strength is getting ground balls," Fuller said. "I'm not going to strike out 10 to 12 guys. That was the goal tonight, was to sink it and try to get some ground balls.
"We had some really good arms last year, but the depth this year is impressive. We have 90-95 coming out just about every guy. It's fun to give it your all and then turn it loose to the back end."
Freshman Brayton Brown opened the scoring for the Tigers in the bottom of the third inning when he deposited a 2-2 pitch just to the right of the scoreboard for his first career home run.
"Big shoutout to Brayton Brown to get us going," Brody Moore said. "He kind of struggled this weekend, I think he only got one or two hits. He came out there and kind of erased it and got us going as a team. A lot of our at-bats kind of fed off that."
Four batters later, in the bottom of the fourth, Conor Davis launched a ball off the top of the scoreboard in left center to put the Tigers on top 3-0 and Moore drove in a run later in the frame. The home run was also Davis' first of the year.
The scoring continued in the bottom of the fifth when Davis drove in his third run of the game and Steven Williams extended the lead to 7-0 with a RBI groundout in his first at-bat since opening weekend.
Williams came back around in the bottom of the seventh and drove in another run on a single to left before Judd Ward and Chase Hall capped off the scoring in the contest with a RBI single and sacrifice fly, respectively, in the eighth.
Barnett worked a scoreless ninth inning and struck out a pair of batters to get the pitching staff to double digit strikeouts for the ninth straight game to start the season. The Auburn hurlers didn't allow a hit after the first batter of the fifth inning and retired 15 of the last 16 batters faced.
Ryan Bliss collected multiple hits for the sixth time this season, and Moore matched him with a pair of base knocks. It marked Moore's second straight game with multiple hits.
Game two of the midweek series is scheduled for tomorrow at 5 p.m. CT at Plainsman Park.