3 takeaways from Auburn baseball’s series sweep over South Carolina

The 2025 season has provided plenty of instances where Auburn baseball has had to battle for three games to win a series in Southeastern Conference play.

Then, there’s the recently concluded series against South Carolina.

Auburn finished off its second sweep of SEC play Friday night, beating the Gamecocks 11-3 in Game 3 after wins of 24-2 and 11-10, respectively, in the first two games. The wins improve Auburn’s overall record to 36-15 (16-11 SEC) and put the Tigers in a great spot to be a top eight seed in the NCAA tournament.

Outside of being pushed in Game 2, Auburn was dominant throughout the series, putting on an offensive clinic in all three games and making another statement near the end of the season.

Here are three takeaways from Auburn’s series sweep over South Carolina:

Red hot at the plate

Twenty-four runs would be an impressive number to tally across a series in the SEC. Auburn did that in Game 1 against South Carolina.

It marked the second time in three games the Gamecocks gave up 20 or more runs, and the third most runs Auburn had ever scored in an SEC game.

“Disciplined at-bats up and down,” head coach Butch Thompson said after Game 1. “We extended innings. We knew the left handers had to be big tonight, and [Ike] Irish, [Cooper] McMurray and [Lucas] Steele were. [Chris] Rembert and [Eric] Guevara were two right handers who gave us a lot tonight.”

The 24 runs Thursday night came on 20 hits, with five of them being home runs. Rembert and Guevara led the charge for Auburn’s offense, combining for 11 RBI and each hitting a home run. Irish, McMurray, Steele and Bub Terrell all contributed multiple RBI as well.

Auburn’s bats didn’t cool off after Thursday night either. The Tigers combined for 22 more runs across Friday’s doubleheader. Numerous Auburn players had strong weekends, but Guevara’s numbers were otherworldly.

He finished the series 12-for-15 at the plate, blasting two home runs with nine RBI, including driving in the game winning run on a squeeze in Game 2.

“I would just say being on time for the fastball,” Guevara said when asked what helped him at the plate. “Obviously the guys behind me and in front of me having great at-bats and getting me pitches to hit. It makes it easier, but just being on time for the fastball and reacting to the off-speed.”

The sweep ended with Auburn producing video game numbers at the plate. The Tigers had 51 hits as a team, batting a collective .495 over the three games with 11 home runs and 46 total runs scored.

Thompson described the performance as Auburn reaching its potential offensively, something he was optimistic about eventually happening. He credited some of the success to the hitters remaining consistent in evaluating pitches, even when Auburn had big leads.

“Sometimes, when you get up big, you just quit evaluating, and you don’t have the same at-bats. I think we had a chance to be consistent with that today, because we never stopped trying to have an at-bat last night,” Thompson said after the doubleheader on Friday. “It showed up, and I think that allowed us to play three complete games offensively.”

Off day for the ace

After the 24-2 demolition in Game 1, few predicted that Auburn would have to sweat out a one run walk off win in Game 2. South Carolina’s chances seemed especially slim in the first leg of Friday’s doubleheader with Auburn ace Sam Dutton starting on the mound.

Dutton came into the game with a 2.37 earned run average that ranked second in the SEC, but had arguably his worst performance of the season in Auburn’s 11-10 win. He pitched a season low four innings and gave up a season high five earned runs on eight hits.

South Carolina saw the ball well against Dutton and consistently made solid contact. He struggled later in the start to get batters out with two strikes, extending at bats and leading to more hits.

The Gamecocks continued to see the ball well after Dutton exited, tallying nine more hits and hitting three home runs. Carson Myers was the only one of Auburn’s four pitchers who took the mound in Game 2 that didn’t allow a run, pitching two innings and giving up two hits.

The win was attributed to closer Ryan Hetzler, who pitched the eighth and ninth innings, allowing two earned runs which caused the game to be tied going into the bottom of the ninth.

Took care of business

Sweeping a near bottom feeder in the SEC like South Carolina isn’t necessarily going to grab national headlines or be grounds to start a party, but Auburn almost couldn’t afford not to.

The Tigers came into the weekend projected by multiple bracketologists as near the cut line for a top eight seed, and any losses to a team like South Carolina could have hurt those chances. Wins over the Gamecocks might not go as far as beating other teams in the SEC, but it still only helps Auburn’s chances.

Now with 16 SEC wins, Auburn’s one win off what it took for SEC teams to gain a top eight seed last season. When asked about the things now at stake for the team, though, Thompson didn’t want to get ahead of himself.

“All that’s out of our hands still,” Thompson said when asked about postseason implications. “What is in our hands is being successful this week. Those guys are going to do a good job.”

Thompson shared that the coaching staff doesn’t talk about standings with the team this season, something he said was requested by the older players.

The point of that change, Thompson said, was to keep the team in the moment, and that’s arguably never been more important than now as Auburn now sits in a position to create an optimal path for itself in the postseason.

Peter Rauterkus covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @peter_rauterkus or email him at prauterkus@al.com