Friday, April 16, 2010

Baseball Series Prep: Auburn

by Barca Blog (Photo by Steve Green)

After dropping their last two conference series, No. 18 Vanderbilt (27-8, 6-6 SEC) will look to rebound against No. 23 Auburn (23-11, 7-5) this weekend at Hawkins Field. The 'Dores and Tigers will open their set on Friday at 6 p.m. CT and will continue on Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. Tickets are still available, so reserve your seats through the Vanderbilt ticket office at (615) 322-GOLD or online at vucommodores.com.

Joe Fisher will provide the radio call on 560 AM for each contest. VUcommodores.com will offer free live video for Friday's and Saturday's games, while Sunday's action will be televised on ESPNU. For Twitter updates, follow @VandyBaseball.

Let's get ready for the matchup by looking at stories from around the web:

------

Kendall Rogers of Rivals.com lists the matchup as one of 10 intriguing series to watch this weekend.

Jeff Lockridge
of The Tennessean blogs about the battle between Auburn's big sticks and Vanderbilt's powerful pitching.

David Rutz of VUcommodores.com catches up with freshman outfielder Regan Flaherty in his weekly podcast.

Erin Prah of InsideVandy.com checks in with pitcher Corey Williams and his road to recovery after suffering a knee injury at Florida.

Andrew Gribble of Opelika-Auburn News says the Tigers still rely on small ball even with a high-powered offense.

Check out the official previews with game notes on VUcommodores.com and AuburnTigers.com.

------

The probable weekend rotation is:

Friday at 6 p.m. CT
RHP Sonny Gray (4-4, 2.44) vs. LHP Cory Nelson (4-2, 4.61)

Saturday at 2 p.m. CT
RHP Jack Armstrong (5-0, 3.43) vs. TBA

Sunday at 1 p.m. CT
RHP Taylor Hill (3-3, 3.51)  vs. LHP Grant Dayton (4-1, 5.18)

------

Quotable No. 1: ""We are having a hard time hitting right now but like free throw shooting or any other skill, it comes back to you. These kids are preparing and working at it hard, sometimes the cycle goes down before it comes back up." -- VU coach Tim Corbin on his team's offensive struggles

Quotable No. 2:
"It is very unusual in college baseball this late in the season to have a team ERA that’s under 3.00. Obviously, when you start thinking about the strength of their club, they can really pitch and that’s why they’ve been successful, that’s what they’ve built their program around.” -- AU coach John Pawlowski on the Dores' pitching staff

------

Around the SEC - SECSports.com
Alabama (22-12, 5-7) at LSU (27-6, 8-4)
Georgia (11-22, 3-9) at Arkansas (28-6, 9-3)
Florida (23-9, 8-4) at Kentucky (21-12, 4-8)
Ole Miss (23-11, 7-5) at South Carolina (26-7, 9-3)
Tennessee (17-17, 3-9) at Miss. State (17-16, 3-9)

------

Video of the Day: Enough with Jumpin' Jeff Farmer and Motley Cruz... Richie Rouge wants to make a name for himself on the IPW circuit:

No comments:

Post a Comment