Auburn Heads To LSU For Three-Game Series

[AUSportTalk 4]

The eighth-place Auburn baseball team will try to keep

a recent trend alive in its Southeastern Conference series with LSU this

weekend when the squad travels to the new Alex Box Stadium. The visiting

team has won each of the last five series between the two clubs, with

LSU claiming the last home series victory in 2003 in Baton Rouge.

Auburn stands at 25-16, 8-10 SEC while LSU is three games in front of

Auburn in the SEC race at 30-12, 11-7 SEC. Auburn is a half-game ahead

of Vanderbilt (7-10 SEC) in the conference standings and a game behind

South Carolina (9-9 SEC). Vanderbilt will play host to Mississippi State

this weekend while South Carolina heads to Florida.

Game times for the three-game series in Baton Rouge are 7pm on Friday,

3pm on Saturday and 1pm on Sunday, with both the Friday and Sunday games

being shown live on CSS.

“LSU is very talented. Top to bottom they can pitch it and they can

hit it,” Auburn Head Coach John Pawlowski said. “When you look at

the numbers that they have and the roster, they are very, very talented.

They are right there at the top of the league in terms of talent and

then you are going into an environment where they are very tough at

home. This will be a great challenge for us.”

Auburn will flip-flop its first two starters on the mound for the

series, giving R-Fr. RHP Jon Luke Jacobs (3-2, 5.79 ERA) the Friday

night start while pushing So. LHP Grant Dayton (2-4, 4.81) to the

Saturday start. Auburn has yet to decide on a Sunday starter.

LSU has yet to announce its rotation for the weekend.

The Auburn offense enters the weekend in a tie with Alabama for the SEC

lead in home runs with 86 but lost a key component when Joseph Sanders

broke his jaw in Tuesday night’s loss to Samford. Sanders is currently

leading the team in doubles (14), home runs (18), RBI (54) and slugging

percentage (.756) and is second on the team with a .329 batting

average.

[ausbest14 0]

We'll miss you, Joe, but maybe the rest of the guys will pull together and regain some of that batting swagger and play well as a team...Starting Jacobs on Friday may be a good move; sometimes a little tweak in the rotation can make a difference...He's probably trying to give the guys some confidence by getting that W on Friday, and maybe let Dayton get settled into the environment for Saturday.  If Jacobs and Dayton can produce good, long outings, maybe Hendrix can start on Sunday (probably dreaming here).

Does anyone know if Jenkins has been officially redshirted for the year?  We could probably use him this weekend, if he hasn't.

[AUSportTalk 4]

I'm not sure if he has or not but I'm thinking he has

[ausbest14 0]

Yeah, I was thinking the same.

[Jackson-Sullivan 0]

I haven't heard on that one either.  All I was hearing at the beginning of the season was that he'd be back midway through or whatever.  I haven't heard anything at all lately, though.