Tournament Round-Up: Texas A&M

#17 Auburn vs #24 Texas A&M

Thursday: 4-2 L

Auburn tried the same game plan it had against Ole Miss and this time it came back to bite them. You know, the one where you don’t get a hit and make the starter look like a Cy Young winner for 6 or so innings and then break out to light up the board? John Doxakis kept Auburn quiet for 7 innings until Auburn was finally able to get to him off of the bat of Conor Davis but it was too little, too late. On the other side, Casey Mize looked more like himself than in the previous 2 starts. The junior went 7.2 innings, only needing help with the final out from Welby Malczewski, meanwhile giving up 4 runs on 8 hits with 7 Ks and again no walks. Casey again fell to what he has in all of his losses this season, lack of help on offense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not coming down on the offense, but it’s too be expected when you put your best against the oppositions best, not a lot of offense, and in the last 3 Mize starts, Auburn has run into career performances when Mize took the bump. The approach could have been better, but in the long run, this is a good practice postseason wakeup call for next week, when it really really matters.

For A&M, this locks down a spot in the tournament if they hadn’t already (they had with the Vandy win on Tuesday in my opinion). For Auburn, it really doesn’t hurt that much except for the pride, however it might be a blessing in disguise. This is still and insanely young team that is playing out of their minds, but they sometimes puff out the chest a little when things are going well. They have confidence but this loss may bring them down to Earth just a bit. We will find out this afternoon when they face Ole Miss one more time. A win locks down a host spot in my opinion. Another drop leaves room for conjecture.

Around Hoover

#4 Georgia vs #7 Ole Miss, Game 9, 5-4 UM/10

Well, Georgia scored a run in Hoover for the first time in 30+ innings but they will have to wait another year to break their 8 game skid in the Tournament. If there was ever just a tournament game this was it. Neither team can really hurt or help themselves, both are national seeds, yes Ole Miss fans, you were a National Seed even with a loss. It did have the most baffling play I’ve seen in a while when Parker Caracci, who has been great in relief this year for Ole Miss, threw home to try and get a tag out instead of throwing to 1^st for the force and over threw the catcher to allow 2 Dawg runs to score to let them tie the game. Luckily, Ole Miss still won and that is now a footnote in the history of that game.

LSU vs South Carolina, Game 10, 6-4 LSU/12

LSU gets a measure of revenge over that dominate 3 game sweep in Columbia earlier this year. It also assures that LSU is in the tournament as they set down the hottest team in the conference. The one positive thing for Auburn is it pretty much ends the Carolina push to host so that means that the Top 4 seeds will get host sites and probably National seeds. I would be shocked….SHOCKED I TELL YOU, if the SEC gets only 4 of the 16 host sites. Vandy is out, even with their 5-1 close, they did get swept by a team that could also host…Auburn. Just sayin.

2018 SEC Baseball Tournament Bracket - Current Logos

2018 SEC Baseball Tournament Bracket - Throwback Logos

On Deck

• #1 Florida vs #6 Arkansas
• #7 Ole Miss vs #17 Auburn
• LSU vs TBA

Thanks to rain and extra inning games, we get 3 games today and I get something to watch at work, AGAIN! We get to see if Arkansas can even the season series and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do, the Hogs are hot and Florida is still trying to regain their dominance after a rough weekend in Starkvegas. Auburn and Ole Miss will be a fun one…ugh. Andrew Mitchell looks to keep his string of quality starts going as Auburn looks to get to Saturday. LSU will take on the Loser of the UF-Arky game later tonight.