Vanderbilt, a team often praised for its pitching, also showed it could wield a little bit of lumber against Auburn on Friday night.

The Commodores sprayed hits all over the field on all sorts of counts and from basically every spot in the order, rapping out 20 base knocks in an 11-6 win over the Tigers in the series opener at Plainsman Park.

And it could have been even worse: Vanderbilt (24-3, 5-2 SEC) left 16 runners on base.

“That’s a quality team,” Tigers coach John Pawlowski said. “They found a way to put swings together and execute.”

The Commodores put 10 runners on base in the first three innings against Auburn (15-11, 2-5) starter Andrew Morris, but could only push two of them across.

So, when the Tigers rallied for two runs in the fifth on a Justin Hargett groundout and Justin Fradejas bloop single, they only trailed 3-2, despite the fact the Commodores already had 11 hits.

“(Morris) did a good job of damage control,” Pawlowski said. “But how many times can you wiggle out of trouble? He did a good job keeping the game intact, which is what he needed to do.”

Vanderbilt was 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position at that point.

The top-ranked Commodores were a bit more efficient in the sixth and seventh innings, going 6-for-8 with runners in scoring position and plating seven runs.

Curt Casali started with an RBI single in the sixth, Jack Lupo drove in a run on a sacrifice bunt, and Riley Reynolds singled home another to make it 6-2.

Tony Kemp started the seventh with a triple, scored on an Anthony Gomez single, and Mike Yastrzemski, Casali and Reynolds followed up with RBI singles of their own to make it 10-2.

All but two of Vanderbilt’s hits – Kemp’s triple and an Aaron Westlake double – were singles.

Kemp was 4-for-6, Gomez was 4-for-6 with two RBI, Reynolds was 4-for-5 with three RBI and Casali was 3-for-6 with two RBI.

Auburn gave up at least 20 hits for the second time in the past three SEC games – after giving up 21 in a 15-8 loss against Mississippi State last Saturday – and is on its first four-game conference losing streak since May 2009.

“Not a very clean baseball game,” Pawlowski said. “We did a lot of things you can’t do to beat a quality team. Not only Vanderbilt, anybody else in our conference.”

Sonny Gray (6-1) picked up the win for Vanderbilt, giving up two runs on four hits in five innings, and Morris (1-2) was saddled with the loss, giving up three runs on nine hits in three.

The Tigers will throw Jon Luke Jacobs (1-1, 1.46 ERA), who is making his first SEC start of the year, tonight at 6 p.m. in their next shot at Vanderbilt.

Jacobs threw three perfect innings against Troy on Tuesday in his first appearance after sitting out more than three weeks due to injury.

“I think we’re searching for answers,” Pawlowski said. “I think we’ve just made some mistakes against good teams. You can’t do that.”

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