Weekly Baseball Regional Math 4/8/21

[tigerbrotha12 2,362]

Auburn did what it needed to do at a bare minimum, which was not get swept at Arkansas. It could've been a much bigger and more important weekend for the Tigers, but as we know, the bullpen just did not show up. Again. That's vital to fix moving forward. If the bullpen on this team does not improve, there is not hope for this team making a regional. 

The good news is that the toughest part of the schedule is behind Auburn, as their first two away series were against probably 2 of the top 3 teams in the country. They'll take on another top 10 team this weekend at home, but we've seen Auburn hang with, push to the edge, and even beat a top 5 team on the road. The Kentucky series is really tough, but Auburn has a chance to right the ship yet again. 

To me, in order to stay in the hunt for the NCAA Tournament, you have to win this series against MSU at a bare minimum, unless you want to count on sweeping Florida, or winning the rest of your road series. 

 

Auburn is 1-8 in the SEC. 

It is almost certain that a 14-16 SEC team will make the tournament, and a 13-17 team will have a greater than 50% chance to get in, IMO.  

Auburn with 7 series left. 4 home, 3 away. 

 

If you win each home series, and take 1 in each away series, that is 11 more wins, which would be equal to 12-18. Thus, Auburn needs to win each of its series at home, take a road series, and not get swept again in order to reach the tournament. That may seem daunting, but with the way Auburn's starters pitched this past weekend, it seems to me that Auburn will have a great shot to win just about every game they play the rest of the season. 

If you do drop the series this weekend, you then have to find a way to get a game back somewhere else, hence my reference to sweeping a home series or winning multiple away series (and that's just to give you a chance). 

Auburn's in a dangerous spot: but here's more good news: Auburn gets three of the "easier" series in the SEC to close the year. That's LSU, TAMU, and Missouri. No these teams are not pushovers and will be tough games, but these are games that Auburn can look at as opportunities to play their best baseball, and aim for a sweep, if not 3 series wins to close the season. Plenty of games remain to makeup for a 1-8 start, but its gotta start happening real soon. If you take 2 against MSU, and you count on about a 6-3 record against LSU, TAMU, and Mizzou to close the season, that's a total of 9 SEC wins. At that rate, you would need only 4 more games out of the Bama, Florida, and Georgia series, a number I think is very do-able.

vs Miss State

@ Alabama

vs Florida

@ Georgia

vs LSU

vs TAMU

@ Missouri

I think Auburn's ceiling is 16-14. That would mean going about 8-1 in your last three series and taking three out of the next four series you play (and not getting swept). Those last three series are a big opportunity for Auburn to pick up some late wins, but you have to be in a position to do that by the time you get there. 

Would a series loss this weekend mean the end of the world for this Auburn Baseball season? Not quite, but it would get a whole lot harder from here on out if you drop more than 1. 

Let's hope we get some gems from our starters, some clutch hits from our offense, and some lockdown pitching from the pen. 

 

***Note*** I'm going to go on record as saying that if Auburn gets more bullpen support, I would not be surprised at all to see Auburn sweep a team or two that they have no business doing that to. Auburn had all three games won in Fayetteville, and couldn't get the bullpen support. If you get that, I legitimately think this is a top 6 SEC team. That's not saying it's going to happen, or even that its incredibly likely to happen, but Auburn has proven it can hang, and really just needs one more piece of the puzzle to come along. (I have my eyes on a certain team to the north of us as well as a team one state to the east of us).