AUBURN | Friday night is all right for Tanner Burns.

Auburn’s sophomore right-hander threw 7.0 scoreless innings to lead the 18th-ranked Tigers to a 6-0 win over UTSA at Plainsman Park. Burns struck out 10 and issued one walk to improve to 3-0 on the season.

Auburn has won seven-straight games including four shutouts in their last six.

"We could tell pretty early he wasn’t as sharp tonight," Auburn coach Butch Thompson said. "It was such a long outing, complete game last week. But boy, you really love those guys you think are consummate winners because when you’re not your best, I’m standing before you with a 10 strikeout, one walk performance.

"He used the breaking ball a little bit more and let his defense work for him. Still pitched really, really well. He got a little out of sync late and you could just tell he was laboring compared to how strong he got to the finish line last week."

Burns has thrown 16.0 scoreless innings with 25 strikeouts in his last two Friday night starts. He walked his first batter in 20.1 innings in the seventh, finishing with 99 pitches. His ERA fell to 0.68.

“It’s very competitive,” Burns said. “I think I needed that before going into Tennessee because Tennessee is really hot right now. Just getting those at-bats and facing some adversity really helped me get more prepared for my next start.

“They were a good fastball-hitting team. A couple of singles I gave up were just fastballs up. I knew I had to change something when I saw them for the second time. My breaking ball was on tonight and it played a big part in my success.”

Elliott Anderson threw 2.0 perfect innings to close out the game as Auburn improved to 12-2 on the season and UTSA fell to 7-7.

Auburn plated four runs in the third. Judd Ward opened the inning with a single and scored from third on an error by the UTSA left fielder. Rankin Woley drove home two more with a bases-loaded single and Ryan Bliss the final run of the inning on a sacrifice fly to right field.

The Tigers added two more in the eighth on a two-out RBI single by Conor Davis and a balk to score Bliss from third base.

Auburn had eight hits, all singles, led by a 2-for-2 night from Matt Scheffler. Edouard Julien scored two runs and Woley drove home two. The Tigers had three base runners thrown out.

The series concludes with a doubleheader Saturday beginning at 2 p.m. CT. Neither game will be available on T.V. or streaming.