A mentality shift by Ben Cleaver and Kentucky baseball (15-7, 2-4 SEC) resulted in a 6-0 game three defeat over No. 20 Auburn (19-4, 5-2 SEC).
Kentucky fell behind in the first two games of the series and despite coming back in both, the Wildcats fell short when the final out was recorded.
“I just wanted to go out there and send a message,” Cleaver said. “I wanted them to show them that they aren’t getting anything today.”
Cleaver labored a bit in the first after giving up two walks but pitched the first scoreless opening frame of the weekend for Kentucky pitching.
The Mentality that Cleaver put forth was contagious to the hitters and helped them get off to the best start of the series.
Hudson Brown drew a bases-loaded walk to bring home Shaun Montoya and get the Cats on the board.
Devin Burkes hit a sacrifice fly to bring home another run before Tyler bell singled to left to bring home Cole Hage.
Luke Lawrence reloaded the bases with a walk which was followed up by Ethan Hindle drawing a walk of his own to bring home Brown.
Griffin Cameron capped off the inning with a sacrifice fly to bring home Bell and give Kentucky a 5-0 lead.
“The guys mentioned how his mentality helped us in the first inning,” Head Coach Nick Mingione said. “They end up throwing 47 pitches in the first and we scored five, but Ben put his foot down.”
The newfound lead on the scoreboard and a talk after the first locked Cleaver for the rest of his outing.
“I love big innings, those always help,” Cleaver said. “But I had a talk with coach [Dan] Roszel when I came in the dugout after the first inning, kind of got my head right and then just locked in on attack mode.”
In the second the lefty tossed a three-up, three-down inning with two strikeouts.
The “Slim Reaper” tossed another three-up, three-down inning in the third.
Cleaver worked around a walk in the fourth to remain scoreless.
The fifth was a very strange inning as play was held up after the umpires took exception to the Auburn dugout and it resulted in two ejections along with a long pause in the action.
Once play resumed, Cleaver walked a batter, which ended his afternoon.
Evan Byers inherited two runners and did not allow ether one of them to score, which kept the shutout intact.
Tommy Skelding came on and retired the first six batters he faced in order.
“We have a lot of young guys playing really well and stepping up and just maturing right before our eyes,” Mingione said.
After getting an insurance run in the seventh, Skelding got two quick outs before surrendering a walk, but he bounced back with a strikeout to finish off his third inning of work in the eighth.
The freshman right-hander stayed on in the ninth to finish out his fourth inning of work and secure the shutout victory for Kentucky.
“They are dogs,” Cleaver said. “Byers came in and picked me up, didn’t give up any of my runs and Tommy came in and shut the door. They weren’t getting anything from our pitchers today.”
This was a game of retribution for the pitching staff as it came into the game reeling on the heels of four straight losses and the inability to keep leads.
Game three marked the first shutout for the Cats in SEC play. In fact, it was the first SEC game where the pitching staff has allowed less than six earned runs.
“I feel like our pitchers obviously haven’t been doing what we need to recently,” Cleaver said. “I feel like we just made a statement not only to the other teams in our league, but to our other pitchers like this is what you need to be doing, this is what it takes to win here.”
Kentucky will look to ride the momentum from the win into its next home game on Tuesday, March 25, where it will host Xavier with first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. ET.
