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Owen: 'Why not us?'

OMAHA | Jack Owen threw 20.2 scoreless innings to start the season. Can the sophomore left-hander capture a little of that magic in Auburn’s opening game of the 2019 College World Series?

His pitching coach certainly thinks so.

“I think Jack is due to catch his second wind,” Steve Smith said. “He was throwing really good and then we had to shut him down for three or four weeks and then start bringing him back. I don’t think he’s been as good as he was early, but I see a little bit. In the pen, I see him starting to come back a little bit.”

Owen has thrown more than just 5.0 innings twice since returning from his injury.
Owen has thrown more than just 5.0 innings twice since returning from his injury. (Wade Rackley/Auburn athletics)

Owen missed six SEC starts in the middle of the season due to shoulder tendonitis. Since his return, he’s 1-2 with a 4.93 ERA. Before the injury against Tennessee May 16, Owen was 3-0 with a 0.31 ERA.

During his injury stint, Owen missed Auburn’s series at Mississippi State, which the Bulldogs won 2-1 after dropping game one 6-5. MSU out-scored AU 36-17 in the final two games of the series.

“For me, I haven’t seen them. And they haven’t seen me,” Owen said. “Right now, I like where I’m at, just because they haven’t gotten — yeah, they’ve probably watched video or whatever, and I’ve seen them play on TV multiple times, but like they haven’t been in the box against me and I haven’t gone on the mound against them. Even though it is one of our West rivals, it’s fair game right now.”

MSU is hitting .317 as a team this season, which ranks fifth in the country and second in the SEC. The Bulldogs are also leading the country in doubles (160), rank second in hits (726) and fifth in runs scored (519). The SEC's all-time hitting leader, Jake Mangum paces MSU at the plate hitting .355 with 22 doubles, 39 RBI AND 22 stolen bases.

Owen has walked just 11 batters in 63.2 innings this season and one of the keys for him against the Bulldogs, especially in the cavernous TD Ameritrade Park, is to throw strikes.

“Throw strikes, pound the zone, dominate the routine play from a defensive standpoint,” said Auburn coach Butch Thompson of the key for Owen and this pitching staff against MSU. “The one thing in this postseason that we’ve done with our pitching staff is created really good tempo and rhythm. That has really helped us to make some plays, got us on and off the field. It has flipped. This season during some stretches it felt like it took us forever to get off the field and we didn’t stay at the plate very well. We flipped that script a little bit and some of that has to do with the rhythm.

“This is a park where you can give up something hit really hard and it’s deep, but it’s definitely still in play. If you’re nibbling trying to pitch and be scared of the home run you’re going to really regret that. Get ahead, stay ahead, use your head. No doubt you’ve got to make pitches, but nonetheless if somebody will just shove it in the strike zone and let the defense play, those are probably the best options for any team here.”

Auburn’s postseason run, knocking out No. 3 national seed Georgia Tech in the Atlanta Regional and beating No. 14 national seed North Carolina in the Chapel Hill Super Regional, have give the team a lot of confidence and plenty of momentum heading into the their first CWS game in 22 years.

“Right now, I feel like we’re playing our best baseball for sure,” Owen said. “And the offense is really starting to come around. Some of the guys who were struggling early, have found their footing and they’re starting to swing the bats. Nothing like, maybe early in the season there was some times that we needed to make sure we kept them off the board and now it’s like, we put up 13 runs in the first inning.

“We’re as hot as anybody, so why not us?”

First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT on ESPN2.

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