Auburn baseball takes on Ole Miss this weekend at Plainsman Park

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Auburn looks for strong finish starting with series vs. Ole Miss

Auburn baseball takes on Ole Miss this weekend at Plainsman Park.

Jason Caldwell11 hrs

AUBURN, Alabama—With nine games left in the SEC schedule, coach Butch Thompson and the Auburn Tigers know that the clock is ticking if they hope to advance to the SEC Tournament in Hoover. Currently 21-22 overall and 3-18 in league play, Auburn three games behind Missouri and four games behind both LSU and Ole Miss in the race for Hoover.

The good news for the Tigers is that they'll get the Rebels and Missouri the next two weeks with an opportunity to make up some ground. That begins this weekend when Ole Miss (23-21, 7-14) comes to Plainsman Park for a three-game series beginning Friday night at 6 p.m. The game can be seen on SEC Network+.

In a race of its own, trying to get back to the NCAA Tournament after going just 6-24 the league last season following a national title in 2022, Ole Miss comes into the weekend with plenty to play for as well. 

Thompson said that makes for what should be yet another competitive weekend in the Southeastern Conference.

"It's good to be back home after two weeks on the road," Thompson said. "We kind of control our own destiny. We're interested in playing our best baseball down the stretch and this week it's vs. Ole Miss and next week vs. Missouri. They are teams we're competing with for those spots. It's a very important weekend here on the Plains.

"It keeps the team, coaches and fans engaged and fighting for something and playing for something that's right in front of you. You don't completely control your own destiny, but a chance to continue to stay in the fight."

Auburn is hoping to build onto what has been two solid weekends from the starting pitching against Mississippi State when Dillon Watts, Tanner Bauman and Carson Myers combined for 27.1 innings and an ERA of just 3.95. That's a huge step in the right direction for Auburn and means those will continue to be the guys that the Tigers roll with on the weekend.

"I feel like they have given us a chance," Thompson said. "I feel like the last two series, every game we've had a chance to be successful. I think this will be the third or fourth week with this rotation intact."

On the flip side, Auburn's offense has been in the tank recently without Ike Irish, Bobby Peirce and Mason Maners. While Maners got back in the final game of the series at LSU, the Tigers continue to struggle swinging the bats. With Irish and Maners both expected back this weekend, Auburn's offense will have a chance to make some noise against an Ole Miss staff that has also struggled this season.

Starting pitchers: 

Auburn

Game 1: So. RHP Dylan Watts (0-2, 5.13 ERA)

Game 2: Sr. LHP Tanner Bauman (2-2, 4.72 ERA)

Game 3: Jr. LHP Carson Myers (2-3, 4.22 ERA)

Ole Miss

Game 1: Jr. RHP Riley Maddox (2-6, 6.42 ERA)

Game 2: So, LHP Liam Doyle (2-2, 5.90 ERA)

Game 3: Jr. RHP Mason Nichols (4-0, 3.14 ERA)

SCOUTING THE REBELS 

Ole Miss enters the weekend with a 23-21 overall record and 7-14 mark in SEC play, including a 2-7 record on the road in league play.

Offensively, the Rebels rank 13th in the league with a .264 team average, led by Ethan Lege's .323. Andrew Fischer leads the way with 15 homers and 41 RBI.

On the mound, Ole Miss is 13th in the SEC with a 6.19 staff ERA and has struck out 416 batters with 193 walks in 371.0 innings of work.

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auburnwire.usatoday.com

Auburn sticking with same weekend rotation for third straight week

Brian Hauch

~3 minutes

Auburn baseball will once again try to capture its first SEC weekend series win of the year when the Tigers host the Ole Miss Rebels at Plainsman Park. If there were ever a time for Butch Thompson’s team to grab a series “W”, this would be it, as the Rebels come in with just a 5-10 road record and 23-21 record overall.

Although the Tigers haven’t won either of their last two series, it hasn’t been because of the starting pitching. Auburn’s weekend rotation has pitched to an above-average 3.85 earned run average over the past two weekends. That stat, along with Auburn’s newfound competitiveness in recent games, may be why coach Thompson has opted to throw Sophomore Dylan Watts (0-2), senior Tanner Bauman (2-2), and junior Carson Myers back into the action this weekend against Ole Miss.

Watts will once again open up the series for the Auburn staff. The young right-hander wasn’t fantastic last weekend against LSU, but he was certainly very good. Auburn’s newest pitching weapon went the deepest he had in any game this season last Friday, throwing 5 2/3 innings of 2-run ball. Watts was dominant throughout the night but allowed 2 solo home runs in the 4th and the 5th in an otherwise brilliant 9 strikeout performance.

Seasoned veteran Tanner Bauman is in line to start for the second-straight Saturday after throwing 4 1/3 solid innings of 2-run ball last weekend. The senior is lefty tied a season-high with 5 punch outs on the afternoon, although I’m sure he would have traded a few of those for quicker outs to get him through 5 innings. He’ll hope to last long enough to qualify for his third win of the season this time out.

In a strange ironic twist, Auburn’s only win last weekend came when the Tigers best and most consistent pitcher, Carson Myers, had one of his worst outings of the season. The UAB transfer lasted just 4 innings against LSU last Sunday, allowing 4 runs (all earned) on 5 hits and a walk. He struck out just 1. Myers may have a chance to take the bump in a rubber game this Sunday. If he gets the chance, the left-hander will need to be better.

Contact/Follow us @TheAuburnWire on  X (Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Auburn news, notes, and opinion. You can also follow Brian on Twitter @TheRealBHauch

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al.com

Auburn’s pitching is getting better. But now the lineup is struggling.

Published: May. 03, 2024, 6:33 a.m.

6–7 minutes

Auburn can’t get everything to go right together.

In what has been one of the worst runs through SEC play in Auburn baseball history with a 3-18 conference record and nine league games to play, the pitching was the problem, especially during the first half of the conference slate. At one point, Auburn had a team ERA in SEC games above nine, worst in the league by more than a full run.

It was pitching that head coach Butch Thompson deemed not “competitive” and forced Auburn’s offense to just try to keep up in order to have a chance to win. That was the story as Auburn lost five straight series to begin SEC play.

Ahead of playing Mississippi State in April, Thompson expressed that it was the beginning of Auburn’s postseason. It had to start playing like it was the postseason then in order to have a chance at making the actual postseason.

And Auburn’s pitching was actually much better. Auburn has pitched to a team ERA of 3.95 over the last two weeks.

“We went from non-competitive to competitive,” Thompson said Thursday. “We’re still getting heart broke a little bit but maybe that’s a step you gotta make to get on the right side of things.”

But Auburn still didn’t win.

Why? As soon as the pitching improved, the offense quickly faded off.

“We just haven’t met at the same time,” Thompson said.

Below is Auburn’s cumulative batting average progression over the course of the 2024 season. It has been a progressive drop since April 5, when Auburn was .288 after the first game of a series against Tennessee.

The team’s cumulative batting average dropped by about .020 during that time. That number appears small, but this late into the season, to cause a drop by tenths of a point and not hundredths of a point is significant, and takes a sustained stretch of quite poor production.

And that shows over Auburn’s last 10 games. The chart below displays Auburn’s batting average as a team in each individual game over its last 10 contests.

As a team, Auburn has hit below. 250 in six of the last 10 games. Four of those have been below .200. Three of those have been .100 or worse.

Over a stretch of four SEC consecutive games — the final two games of Auburn’s series against Mississippi State and the first two games of Auburn’s series against LSU where Auburn lost all four — Auburn as a team went 11-for-110.

That’s a .100 batting average as a team for a total of four games.

Some of the issues could be due to injury. During those 10 games, Auburn has not had Ike Irish, Bobby Peirce and Mason Maners all available the same time because of various ailments.

Some of that could be due to inexperience in the lineup during the crucible of the nation’s most difficult college baseball league, Thompson said.

“We had a starting lineup Saturday, not to make excuses, just protection for the guys now that we’ve taken on some of these injuries,” Thompson said. “These aren’t just guys. These are three everyday pieces for us, or expected to be everyday pieces and were everyday pieces. We had five guys in the lineup with less than 10 RBIs. Six guys with less than 100 at-bats for the entire season. It’s like when we get one thing going, we’ve had a challenge here. And when the challenge gets better here then we’ve created a new challenge.”

That, Thompson said, is why Auburn has still failed to win a single SEC series.

Irish is Auburn’s best player. Thompson expects him back in some capacity for this weekend’s series against Ole Miss beginning Friday night at Plainsman Park. But Irish also went 0-6 in those aforementioned final two games against Mississippi State.

Regardless, getting him back should be a boost. Irish only has one hit in his last 17 at-bats, but still is second on the team in batting average, home runs and runs batted in.

“The injuries, positionally, it was horrible timing for that to happen,” Thompson said. “I’m still fighting for three weekends for us to play our best baseball. The positive has been getting all these young guys some playing time.”

Without Irish and others expected to play a large role this season in the lineup, Auburn has turned to a significant number of freshmen or other newcomers.

Over the last 10 games, nine players who were not on the team last season have made the starting lineup.

Every freshman position player has played this season. Four of the five freshman position players — Eric Guevara, Cale Stricklin, Cade Belyeu and Cole Edwards — have made starts. Three of them — Guevara, Stricklin and Belyeu — have started more than 10 games each.

Belyeu has been especially excellent at the plate as a freshman. He is hitting .304 and is second on the team in on-base-percentage among those with more than 10 games played. Guevara has shown flashes of potential still only about seven months after an ACL injury and Thompson has been pleased with Stricklin, especially as he’s been the one catching behind the plate as the pitching staff has improved.

Maybe it hasn’t led to a lot of results right now. These young players are ahead of schedule. The situation of this season has forced that upon them. In the long run, Thompson believes, that may work out to his, and their, benefit.

“Some of this will pay dividends at some point down the road,” Thompson said. “We found some anchors to hold on in some of these young guys to get experience may before they were supposed to. That will help us at some point. Hopefully, it’s now. But nonetheless, whenever we get there, that will help us transition to get ready for next year.”

Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

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247sports.com

 

Irish expected back this weekend for Auburn baseball

Jason Caldwell

4–5 minutes

---

Auburn could get sophomore Ike Irish back this weekend.

AUBURN, Alabama—With nine games left in the SEC regular season, the Auburn Tigers (21-22, 3-18) have their backs against the wall with the Ole Miss Rebels (23-21, 7-14) coming to town this weekend, but there is some good news for coach Butch Thompson's club. Struggling at the plate the last few weeks because with injuries to Ike Irish, Bobby Peirce and Mason Maners dealing the offense a big blow, Auburn will get Irish back this weekend against the Rebels and it's a huge deal, said freshman catcher Cale Stricklin.

"Ike, obviously, is a special player," Stricklin said. "He means a lot to this program. Him being back is such a big role for our team. Yesterday in his live AB's in his first three at-bats he hit two home runs and a single. He's a spark plug for our team. We're playing good baseball going back to the last game against LSU. He's really going to help our team and we're going to get going."

Dealing with a hand injury prior to injuring his ankle against Mississippi State two weeks ago, Irish is still second on the team with a .326 average, 11 home runs and 48 runs batted in. That's the case despite some struggles while playing through his hand injury. He's just 1-17 in his last six SEC games, but Thompson said he sees more of the old Ike Irish since his return from the ankle injury.

"With it being finals week, we had a 5-inning intra squad to get the pitchers some work and to get some at-bats," Thompson said. "We wanted to get Peirce and Irish some at-bats. They both participated. 100 percent that Irish would be in there. It could be from a DH standpoint. His most recent challenge was the ankle, but he's running well and swinging the bat well. 

"I think he's even swinging it better than he did with his hand. I think with more distance there from the hand injury, he's good. It's just what he can do running around the ballpark on his ankle."

With Irish expected back, Auburn could also see Maners back in the lineup after getting the start in game three at LSU. While Peirce could still be limited with his hand injury still impacting his swing, Auburn's offense could get a big boost heading into the weekend against the Rebels.

The three-game series against Ole Miss will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday. Game times for the weekend are 7 p.m. on Saturday and 3 p.m. on Sunday. Saturday's game can be seen on SEC Network.

 

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