Auburn opens the SEC Tournament with a rematch against Missouri
Five weeks after being left for dead, essentially, Auburn's sitting in the driver's seat for a hosting spot in the Field of 64 - Baseball America has them projected as a national 14 seed, hosting (2) Texas, (3) Troy, and (4) Samford, paired with the Fayettville Regional for Supers. D1Baseball has Auburn as a national 12 seed, hosting (2) East Carolina, (3) Troy, and (4) Alabama State and paired with the Stanford Regional for Supers.
But we're not there yet.
"You can never get too far ahead of yourself - that's the coaches job to do." said Auburn catcher Nate LaRue before the team left Auburn for Hoover on Monday afternoon. "You've got to be ready and locked in for every single one of the 27 outs. That's been a huge part of our season this year - even through the struggles, we kept it pitch by pitch and didn't look too far ahead, at other games, other opponents. Just kept it within ourselves and kept it within the game."
No, Auburn is focused on the task at hand: Win a game in Hoover at the SEC Tournament. They haven't done it since 2019, when they opened the tournament with a 5-3 defeat of #9 seed Tennessee on May 21st, 2019.
"It's, arguably, the best amateur baseball tournament that exists on the planet." siad head coach Butch Thompson. "It's an amazing place to play. It (the SEC Tournament) has been there so long that it's synonymous with Omaha (site of the College World Series) - the fanfare, the RVs, the fields they have down below. It's just an amazing experience and with over half of this team being new, they get to experience it."
It's a challenge that the players are excited about. "I would say the fan experience," is what closer Will Cannon is most looking forward to in the tournament. "Growing up an Auburn fan, always went to the SEC Tournament with my friends. All of the fans being there, and there's a bunch of Auburn people around Birmingham. I would say the fan experience, for sure."
The SEC Tournament is a unique beast - six days, with four games a day for the first three days, and a single elimination first round before you get to double elimination. The days are long - any sort of weather delay, which there always are in Hoover in May - and that game four may not start until 10PM sometimes.
It can be hard to stay locked in mentally with an indeterminate start time for your matchup, and veteran Nate LaRue said every player handles the situation differently. "For me, at least, taking that morning time to just unplug a little bit, not necessarily focusing on another game that I'll be playing at eight o'clock at night. I've got no reason to think about it at 8AM. For a couple other guys, I know they like thinking about it like that (too), and some other guys, they'd rather be amped up all day."
Thompson shared how important his Legacy Group (Kason Howell, Bobby Peirce, Nate Larue) is to keeping the team engaged for that eventual start time, "Those guys set the temperature, they set the rhythm. They have the temperature of the room set and all they (the rest of the team) have to do is watch the example because these guys, our leaders, are locked in."
But the big thing for Auburn is understanding the context of this "game four" - for the 2nd season, they're playing the opponent they finished the regular season with (Auburn went 1-2 against Kentucky to close the regular season last year before dropping their opening round matchup against the Wildcats in Hoover).
"The only thing I told the team today is 'you know, this is not a new game - this is a continuation of a series.' We're just taking a - maybe it's rained a couple of days, and this is game four."
Auburn's starting Tommy Vail tonight, and Butch said the mindset starts from his first pitch. "Tommy Vail's about to go through the lineup a second time, you know, and he needs to pick up where he left off mentally. [..] That's how we're going to approach it as a ball club."
That mindset works both ways, for both offense and pitching. "Some of our hitters are about to walk into their 14th, 15th, 16th at-bat. Missouri and that pitching staff has been working them and finding sequences, so to me, this is more of a professional baseball concept where we're picking up a fourth game in a series here as opposed to a new game."
It's an interesting challenge: Do you keep doing what you did that worked over the weekend, when Auburn swept all three games in Plainsman Park, or do you make adjustments?
"For me, the way I think about it, the first couple batters will really tell me what I need to know about what their lineup's thinking, whether they've made adjustments or not," said LaRue, who only caught two of the three games in the series, owing to Friday's doubleheader. "We're obviously going to have to mix it up a little more than we did this weekend, but not necessarily straying too far from the game plan we had - obviously we had success with it. It's kind of just seeing whether or not they've made adjustments."
Cannon thinks it'll come down to the individual pitcher doing their job, another of Thompson's mantras he's preached this season, "I think it's all about execution: Who executes better? I think we'll have the same game plan, just executing it better."
Auburn vs Missouri Pitching Matchup
LHP Tommy Vail (5-1, 3.38 ERA) vs LHP Javyn Pimental (1-1, 6.26 ERA)
Vail gets the ball after illness bumped him from Friday's planned start to only a short two-inning relief appearance on Saturday. "We've just used that as his bullpen - threw a couple innings for us, gave us everything he had." said Thompson. Cannon thought the Saturday outing from Vail was big, for multiple reasons. "He battled. Tommy's always been that guy for us the whole entire year, so him going out there and giving us two innings was huge, just to get to the back end of the bullpen. [...] You could tell from the stance he wasn't feeling too great." Thompson told us Vail received multiple IVs on Friday in an attempt to take the ball for his scheduled start, and the work allowed him to appear on Saturday.
Auburn saw Pimental on Friday night for game two, and it didn't go well for the junior. Auburn read the first pitch fastball well and tagged the lefty for four hits and three runs in the first 3.2 innings, walking once and only striking out three times.
Auburn vs Missouri Game Time and Bracket
First pitch is officially 30 minutes after the conclusion of game three, scheduled for 4:30PM between #8 Kentucky and #9 Alabama. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network, and Auburn will be the home team.
Were Auburn to defeat Missouri in the single-elimination opening round, they would take on #4 Vanderbilt as the away team, again in the 4th game of the day, on Wednesday night. As the 2nd round is double elimination, win or lose Auburn would play a third game, with several possible opponents based on how the bracket falls.
If Auburn were to beat Vanderbilt, they'd take on either Florida or the winner between Kentucky and Alabama as the fourth game of day three.. If Auburn loses to Vanderbilt, they'd move to Bracket One and take on the loser of that Florida vs Kentucky/Alabama matchup as the second game of day three.
How to Watch Auburn vs Missouri in the SEC Tournament
Auburn vs Missouri has a tentative start time of 8PM on Tuesday night. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network, with Tom Hart and Chris Burke on the call, and is available for streaming on SEC Network+. The radio call, with Voice of the Tigers Andy Burcham and Brad Law, is available locally on 93.9 FM, online at AuburnTigers.com, or streaming on the Auburn Athletics App.
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