AUBURN — The Auburn Doubledays’ home-opening win was packed with ebbs and flows. Despite giving the Elmira Pioneers multiple chances to tie or take the lead, the D'days held on for an 8-7 win at Falcon Park on Thursday. It was manager Dan Shwam’s first home win, and third overall, in his first season leading the Auburn team.
It's now 3-1, but Shwam has noticed a trend that may put Auburn in trouble down the line. “We jump on teams, and we coast,” he told The Citizen. “We've done it so far between four games.
Even in the game that we lost to Geneva we were ahead, then we decided to coast and they beat us.” On the mound Thursday, Owen Birchard pitched his first outing with the D'days after wrapping up his baseball career with the Auburn Maroons. Shwam said Birchard was experiencing some “jitters,” which may have led to control issues.
He walked four batters in the second inning, allowing Elmira to take an early 2-0 lead. However, he limited the damage by retiring two in a row to get out of the inning. The D'days had their pitcher’s back in the bottom of the inning as Alex Sandell, Dalton Groves, Brandon Hoftijzer and Skylar Mays each drove in one run to take a two-run lead.
Elmira put runners in scoring position again in the third and fourth inning, but the former Maroon bounced back to get out of each inning unblemished. After Andrew Catron took over on the bump in the fifth, the Pioneers tacked on a run off a double to trim Auburn’s lead to one run. The .
