Takeaways From Auburn Baseball's Sweep of Missouri

The Auburn Tigers swept the Missouri Tigers in Columbia during SEC Opening Weekend, taking all three games in two days after the threat of weather led to a Saturday doubleheader. Auburn left the Show Me State with wins of 2-0, 4-3, and 9-2.

Here are three takeaways from Auburn’s first SEC sweep of the 2026 season

Starting Pitching is CWS Good

Auburn’s three weekend starters combined to pitch 21.2 innings, with each starter making it at least seven deep. Jake Marciano started Game 1, pitching 7 scoreless innings and allowing just 2 hits and 1 walk while striking out 7 Missouri batters.

Jackson Sanders took the mound for the first game Saturday, also pitching 7 strong innings for Auburn. Sanders struck out 8 Missouri batters and allowed just 3 hits, 1 walk, and a single earned run. Alex Petrovic closed out the series Saturday night, pitching a 7.2 inning gem with also just 1 earned run allowed. Petrovic allowed 4 hits and 3 walks, but added 8 strikeouts of his own. 

Marciano and Petrovic both picked up the win in their starts, making the final Auburn starting pitching line for the weekend 2-0, 21.2 innings pitched, 2 earned runs, 10 hits, 5 walks, and 23 strikeouts, good enough for an ERA of 0.85 on the weekend.

Auburn’s starting pitching has been strong for each weekend series this season barring Game 1 against Nebraska, but all three players locked down the Missouri lineup in the SEC season opener. That trend will need to continue, as Auburn has a midweek vs Georgia Tech and welcomes Texas to Plainsman Park this coming weekend.

Hetzler Locks Back Down

Ryan Hetzler has been extremely solid to start the season for Auburn, but suffered a rough outing against Nebraska in the Tigers’ Game 1 loss. However, he looked much more like himself against Missouri in Game 2.

Hetzler was called upon to finish the 8th inning in Game 2, and locked the game down for Auburn. He allowed 4 hits across 2.1 innings of work and struck out 4 Missouri batters, securing an extra-innings win for Auburn and his third win of the season.

Every team is going to witness a rough outing from its closer every once and a while, but to see Hetzler bounce back like that to begin SEC play in a high pressure spot is incredibly encouraging for the Auburn bullpen moving forward.

Lineup Continues to Build Through Weekends

As has been the case for many weekends in this early season, the Auburn lineup saved its best work for the latter half of the weekend series. Aside from the Winthrop matchup, each of the rest of Auburn’s weekends have seen the Tigers put up their lowest scoring mark in Game 1 before building up and then breaking out on offense in the latter part of a series. 

That trend continued against Missouri, with the Auburn bats posting two runs in Game 1, then 4 in extra innings in Game 2, and finally a 9 run Game 3 sparked by a 7-run avalanche in the 7th inning that was capped by a 3-run bomb by Ethin Bingaman.