Mid-week Round-up: vs Oakland

Oakland @ #10 Auburn

• Wednesday: 17-1 W

Well, technically we found out how Auburn responds to trailing in this one. Heading to the bottom of the 2^nd inning, Auburn trailed 1-0 on the heels of a Blake Griffin solo home run off of starter Trace Bright. The next time Bright took to the hill, he held a 7-1 lead. When the Auburn offense strikes, it really strikes hard. The Tigers were able to pound out 16 hits and score 17 runs on the night, and the most encouraging thing, at least to me, is that only one of those runs was from a home run (Johnny Ciccoli’s solo bomb in the 8^th…the first time he batted in that inning). In fact, Auburn has hit 2 bombs this year, both solo HRs. The rest of Auburn’s 59 runs in 5 games have all been from events that happened within the field of play. The other exciting thing is that the Auburn pitching staff only allowed 6 hits on the night while walking 4 and stranded 6 throughout the night. Overall, this is exactly what you want out of a mid-week game.

Around the League

#3 Vanderbilt

vs South Alabama

• TUE – 3-0 W
• WED – 4-0 W

Nice bounce back series win for the Dores after a rough time in Arizona and do it against a pretty good team in South Alabama in style.

#5 Georgia

• @ Kennesaw St, WED – 10-3 W

YAWN! Exactly what should have happened here.

#7 Florida

• @ Jacksonville, TUE – 13-3 W
• vs Jacksonville, WED – 4-3 W/10

Really good home and home series win for the Gators here. The real fun will be this weekend as the Gators head to Miami to take on the Hurricanes who check in at #1 in our too early to release top 25 poll. We will find out in a hurry if Florida is what everyone says they are and, in turn, if Miami has really returned to what they were back in the 90s.

#13 LSU

• vs Southern, TUE – 8-3 W
• @ Nicholls, WED – 4-2 L

WHAT?! I mean, its on the road but this was not the start to the season Coach Paul was looking for the Tigers. Don’t worry though, Eastern Kentucky comes to Red Stick this weekend, so that should be a sweep…should be.

#16 Ole Miss

• vs Alcorn St, WED – 9-8 W/10

I wasn’t expecting a hang over from the series win over Louisville, but here we are. At least the Rebs were able to get the W in extras. A visit from a pesky Xavier team will be an interesting one to follow this weekend.

#21 Texas A&M

• vs Stephen F. Austin, TUE – 13-4 W
• vs Prairie View – 30-2 W/7

27 RUNS! IN 2 INNINGS!!!! WH….HOW?! AND ON 16 HITS?!

Well at least the Aggies had a nice couple of practices this week…

Tennessee

• vs Charlotte, TUE – 8-2 W

YAWN!!!

Kentucky

• vs SE Missouri St, TUE – 9-4 W

Hey! There go the Bat Cats! After a….tough….weekend in Fort Worth, the Cats scratch a win on the board and now they get to host the Mountaineers of App State!

Alabama

• vs Alabama St, WED – 10-3 W

I know I sorta did this last year, but here is my darkhorse team for expectations this season. Bama had a great weekend against Northeastern and did what they were suppose to do against Alabama State this week. Now they head out to Vegas to take on UNLV…nice.

South Carolina

• vs Presbyterian, WED – 14-3 W

Yawn! That is exactly what should have happened and now the Gamecocks play host to Northwestern in a nice SEC vs Big Ten (or 14) contest.

On Deck

Central Florida @ #10 Auburn

• Friday – 3PM
• Saturday – 2PM
• Sunday – 1PM

Coming up for the Tigers this weekend, they play host to the UCF Knights in a return from last season’s trip to Orlando. The Knights enter the weekend at 4-1 after opening the season with a 4 game sweep of Siena but dropped the midweek matchup against Stetson. To be quite honest, there isn’t a whole lot of data to do a deep dive on the Knights but so far their numbers somewhat mirror Auburn’s numbers. The difference is that I would take UIC over Siena in competition level. This will be a good test for the Auburn bats though as UCFs pitching staff appears deeper than they were last year.

PREDICTION – Auburn takes series 2-1.