AUBURN | It’s not like Tanner Burns hasn’t been good, but when you’re a consensus preseason All-American those expectations, fair or not, can be pretty high.

Friday night the junior right-hander looked every bit of an ace, striking out 10 and allowing one hit in 7.0 scoreless innings to lead Auburn to a 6-0 win over Chicago State.

“I feel like I was pitching tonight and I feel like I had all my stuff — fastball, changeup, curveball, slider,” Burns said. “I tried to make quick innings, work ahead, stay ahead and then try to finish at-bats.”

Burns (3-1) earned his 14th career win and lowered his ERA to 2.42 with a team-best 32 strikeouts. He came into the night with a 3.52 ERA and 14 hits allowed in 15.1 innings.

“The rotation of a breaking ball, the fastball coming out, maintaining his strength in the stretch, staying competitive, I think he’s made some adjustments every week and especially these last two outings," Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. "Between Tim (Hudson) and Tanner and myself, we have been working really hard and probably been coaching Tanner really hard.

"He’s come through. I feel like he’s sharpening himself and I think it showed up tonight in the ballgame. He was just really, really, really good.”

Burns was concerned he was tipping off his pitches in his previous two starts against UCF and Wright State. He lost to UCF allowing three runs, two earned in 5.1 innings, and allowed two runs, one earned, in 5.0 innings in a win over Wright State.

“I’d say yea, I was frustrated because I was trying to figure out why I was getting hit,” Burns said. “They’re putting up runs, which that’s going to happen, I’m human, but I feel like my stuff was better than those teams. Later in the week, I found out I might have been tipping my pitches and from word, I was. I had to fix that. Me and Coach Hudson got into that this week. I just went back to my simple delivery that I did my freshman and sophomore year.”

Cody Greenhill closed out the game with 2.0 hitless innings, striking out three of the six batters he faced. Auburn’s pitching staff hasn’t allowed a run 21.1 innings.

“It's just good to see Tanner put it together and Cody Greenhill was electric tonight. He didn’t just throw hard tonight, those balls were spotted very well, albeit for two innings," Thompson said.

At the plate, Rankin Woley was 2 of 4 with a two-RBI double in the fourth and an RBI single in the seventh. Steven Williams has two hits including a 3-run home run well over the right field wall in the seventh. Matt Scheffler had three hits, and Ryan Bliss and Kason Howell two hits apiece.

“After those first couple of at-bats, my front was flying open. I was really out front on them. I talked to Gabe and he said sting left-center and that’s what I was thinking and he just kinda left one middle-in, heart of the plate, and I just let the barrel go and put a good swing on it. It felt really good,” said Williams of his first home run of the season.

Auburn, which improves to 11-3, hosts Chicago State Saturday at 2 p.m. CT and Sunday at 1 p.m. Both games will be on SEC Network+.