Baseball @ Samford

[tigerbrotha12 2,362]

Tigers down 2-0 in the second inning. Hitless.

[AU64 10,122]

Wow...Owens is knocked out in one inning....down 4-0 and some questionable fielding again.   Might be another shootout like last year.

Coker already in the game in the 2nd inning. 

[FUZZYAUFAN 134]

Had 0-2 counts on 3 batters to start second and got no of them out. 4-0 Samford

[AU64 10,122]

Holland drives in a pair with a no out single with bases loaded. ....score 4-2 now

Williams at bat with a couple runners on and no outs.... 

[AU64 10,122]

Well game is 45 minutes plus old.....only 2 innings complete and looks like a game that's gonna last until midnight again. 

So Williams walks to load the bases again and

Wright is up to the plate and Samford brings in pitcher #3

[AU64 10,122]

Wright goes down on strikes.....

Venter grounds to short and the rally is snuffed out leaving the bases loaded....

Samford up 4-2 bottom of 3rd.

[tigerbrotha12 2,362]

Rod just summed it up perfectly on the radio:

”Auburn has relied heavily on their pitching this year. At some point, you’ve got to grit your teeth and just get it done at the plate. The bats must get going. You can’t be successful if you don’t have anything going on offense.” 

Wish he’d tell that to the team. Getting annoying to watch some of these guys’ approaches at the plate. Swinging at stuff way out of the zone, letting first pitch fastballs go down the middle, baserunning errors, almost laughable some of the stuff we’ve turned in so far this year.

4-2 Samford now on a 2 RBI single bubble holland. First good news in a while for him. Later in inning, Bases loaded with one out. Wright strikes out on three pitches (all sliders, two pitchers swinging at crap out of zone), and Venter lazily grounds to short. Those guys have been in a huge slump as of late. They’ve got to find a way to start producing better. You should never get 0 runs out of a bases loaded with less than 2 outs position. That’s bad baseball by two upperclassmen 

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

7 minutes ago, tigerbrotha12 said:

Rod just summed it up perfectly on the radio:

”Auburn has relied heavily on their pitching this year. At some point, you’ve got to grit your teeth and just get it done at the plate. The bats must get going. You can’t be successful if you don’t have anything going on offense.” 

Wish he’d tell that to the team. Getting annoying to watch some of these guys’ approaches at the plate. Swinging at stuff way out of the zone, letting first pitch fastballs go down the middle, baserunning errors, almost laughable some of the stuff we’ve turned in so far this year.

4-2 Samford now on a 2 RBI single bubble holland. First good news in a while for him. Later in inning, Bases loaded with one out. Wright strikes out on three pitches (all sliders, two pitchers swinging at crap out of zone), and Venter lazily grounds to short. Those guys have been in a huge slump as of late. They’ve got to find a way to start producing better. You should never get 0 runs out of a bases loaded with less than 2 outs position. That’s bad baseball by two upperclassmen 

If one AU batter could get hot.....it might pull the rest of the team up.

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

And.....another terrible call costs AU a base runner.  Good Grief.

[AU64 10,122]

Butch needs to get himself thrown out of one of these games to fire up his guys.....taking these close plays with just a little bellyaching .....ain't getting the team motivated.  

For those who care, the game is on video at Samford   http://www.socondigitalnetwork.com/socon/game/auburn8-at-samford-on-04102018

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

Butch was absolutely livid.  That's the most yelling I've ever seen out of him. If they screw up again he probably will get thrown out. I think he's had about enough of the bad calls at this point.

[SumterAubie 3,031]

8-2

What on earth has happened to our baseball team?

[FUZZYAUFAN 134]

8-2 and samford has 11 hits to Auburn’s 3 in the 4 inning. Hopefully the bats wake up. 

[AU64 10,122]

Coker is shelled and gone after giving up the cycle....Anderson in now...

[SCTiger2011 1,277]

People are going to overreact to this because it's in addition to our struggles in conference play.  This will only be AUs 3rd non-con loss so for the most part the midweek job has been getting done.  The overall landscape doesn't change after tonight besides just adding to our annoyance at the offensive woes; The "must" goal is still the same.  Take 4 out of 6 the next two weekends.  Though I do hope the offense shows some pop in the last five innings even though the pitching abandoned them for once.

[Gowebb11 9,303]

3 minutes ago, SCTiger2011 said:

People are going to overreact to this because it's in addition to our struggles in conference play.  This will only be AUs 3rd non-con loss so for the most part the midweek job has been getting done.  The overall landscape doesn't change after tonight besides just adding to our annoyance at the offensive woes; The "must" goal is still the same.  Take 4 out of 6 the next two weekends.  Though I do hope the offense shows some pop in the last five innings even though the pitching abandoned them for once.

I’m not sure we are overreacting. Frustrated and disappointed are more accurate terms for me. AU is 2-8 in the last 10 conference games and now is getting whacked by Samford at home. We were picked to finish near the bottom of the West and that’s where we are. We need better players. 

[SCTiger2011 1,277]

1 minute ago, Gowebb11 said:

I’m not sure we are overreacting. Frustrated and disappointed are more accurate terms for me. AU is 2-8 in the last 10 conference games and now is getting whacked by Samford at home. We were picked to finish near the bottom of the West and that’s where we are. We need better players. 

AU gets beat by a Samford/USA/GT/Troy every year and has for years.  Every team loses a handful of those type games, its the nature of the game.  I'm not counting frustrated/disappointed as overreacting.  That's fair.  I've just seen the typical hyperbole in the Twittersphere and other blogs so far.  AU isn't the top 10 team we were happy to celebrate three weeks ago.  They're also not the "never going to win/pets heads are falling off" team people are happy to bury right now.  We've learned they're not better than the number 3 and number 11 teams on the road and currently struggle with offense.  The only "uh-oh" head scratcher so far is the Mizzou home series loss.  Two or three wins this weekend and the recency bias will switch everyone back to confident again.  Its why baseball is awesome and terrible all at once!

[AU64 10,122]

Well.....little chance for a rally and then...K-K-K and Auburn is down......Score 8-3 and Anderson back on the mound..

[FUZZYAUFAN 134]

And more runners left on base. 

[Gowebb11 9,303]

14 minutes ago, SCTiger2011 said:

Two or three wins this weekend and the recency bias will switch everyone back to confident again.  Its why baseball is awesome and terrible all at once!

Good post @SCTiger2011 What’s particularly troubling about this current slide is way too many non-competitive at bats. We have guys swinging and missing by a lot. Especially some of our veteran hitters. Butch has a tall task ahead of him getting this thing corrected down the stretch. Hope they can do it. 

[SCTiger2011 1,277]

2 minutes ago, Gowebb11 said:

Good post @SCTiger2011 What’s particularly troubling about this current slide is way too many non-competitive at bats. We have guys swinging and missing by a lot. Especially some of our veteran hitters. Butch has a tall task ahead of him getting this thing corrected down the stretch. Hope they can do it. 

Holland's responding after not starting on Sunday so that's encouraging.  He's 3-4 tonight (score update, it's Samford ahead 8-3 B6).  

[AU64 10,122]

Nice work by Elliott Anderson.....settled things down for AU after taking over for Coker...but walked the lead-off who took second on a bad throw and Mitchell takes the ball now in hopes of keeping the score at 8-3 in the bottom of the 6th.   

Game is still in reach for AU.

[Tigerbelle 5,299]

Samford always seems to have what it takes to win these baseball games vs AU.

[AU64 10,122]

Shoot....Mitchell gives up a double off the RF wall and the runner scores....9-3 with runner on and one out...

[AU64 10,122]

Mitchell gets out of the inning but let in one more run to put AU down by 6 runs with three more turns at bat.