BATON ROUGE — For the first time in six years, the top two teams in the Southeastern Conference’s baseball standings will meet in the month of May this weekend when the LSU Fighting Tigers welcome the Auburn Tigers to Alex Box Stadium for a three-game series that will go a long way in determining the conference champion.
The series gets underway on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in a game that will be televised throughout Louisiana and the Gulf South on Cox Sports Television. Saturday’s 2 p.m. game will not be televised, but Sunday’s 1 p.m. series finale will be available in the bayou state on the Louisiana Sports Network and in other SEC markets on Comcast Sports Southeast as part of Auburn’s Sunday television package.
Sunday’s game will also be Senior Day, as LSU’s five seniors will be honored prior to their final regular season home contest.
All three games will be broadcast throughout Louisiana on the LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge), with live audio, video and statistics from the contests available on the Internet at www.lsusports.net
LSU (33-16-1) enters the weekend with a 16-7-1 mark in the SEC, one and a half games ahead of Auburn (34-14), which is 15-9 in the conference. Mississippi St. (33-13-1, 14-9), which won two of three from LSU last weekend in Starkville, is two games behind, while four other teams–Alabama, Arkansas, Ole Miss and South Carolina–still within striking distance.
The last time the top two teams in the SEC standings met so late in the season was exactly six years ago this weekend, when LSU and Alabama met in Tuscaloosa to close the 1997 regular season. The Crimson Tide won the first two games of the series, 6-4 and 28-2 to close to within one game of the Tigers, but LSU bounced back for a 6-4 win in the final game of the series to deny Alabama a share of the championship.
LSU (No. 8 Collegiate Baseball, No. 10 Baseball America, No. 16 ESPN/USA Today) closed the non-conference portion of its regular season with a 21-6 thrashing of Loyola-New Orleans on Tuesday, as the Bayou Bengals posted season highs for runs and hits.
The Tigers are hitting .330 in SEC games, and remain the only team to be hitting above .300 in conference games. Junior shortstop Aaron Hill is batting .404 in league games with 15 doubles and 22 RBI, and he is the Tigers’ leader in overall batting average at .366, while continuing to lead the SEC in on-base percentage at .481.
The Tigers’ pitching rotation for the weekend will remain the same as it has for the previous five series, when Brian Wilson was lost for the season with a torn ligament in his elbow. Freshman right-hander Justin Meier (5-2, 2.77), who has won just once in his last four starts, will take the mound on Friday, followed by senior right-hander Bo Pettit (7-2, 4.94) on Saturday and junior right-hander Nate Bumstead (8-1, 3.55) on Sunday.
Bumstead has been the Tigers’ best pitcher throughout conference play, going 7-0 with a 2.80 ERA in league games and pitching at least seven innings in every league outing.
Auburn (No. 10 ESPN/USA Today, No. 13 Baseball America, No. 17 Collegiate Baseball) has taken on one of the nation’s toughest schedules this season, fashioning a 15-8 mark against Top 25 competition, allowing the Tigers of the Plains to stand No. 2 in the latest unofficial RPI standings produced by Boyd Nation. Auburn had been first for six weeks prior to dropping two of three games at Vanderbilt at the end of April.
Auburn, seeking its first SEC championship since 1978, features a solid lineup that has seven regulars hitting .300 or better, led by a .378 mark from sophomore second baseman Tug Hulett. Hulett is a native of Shreveport who played at Evangel Christian Academy for his father, former major league infielder Tim Hulett.
Auburn’s top power threat is senior designated hitter Bobby Huddleston, who leads Auburn with 10 home runs and 50 RBI.
Auburn coach Steve Renfroe has decided on two-thirds of his pitching rotation for the weekend, going with sophomore left-hander Arnold Hughey (5-4, 4.03) on Friday and junior right-hander Colby Paxton (6-1, 3.39) on Saturday. Renfroe has several options for a Sunday starter, including a pair of junior righties in Cory Dueitt (6-2, 2.56) and Eric Brandon (2-3, 5.98).
The road team has dominated the LSU-Auburn series in recent years, as the visiting team has won the last three series and 10 of the 15 series dating back to 1988. LSU continued this trend in 2002 by winning two of three at Auburn after the Bayou Bengals lost two of three at home in 2001.
Both Renfroe and LSU coach Smoke Laval were long-time assistants under highly successful coaches before ascending to the top spot. Renfroe was a player at Auburn in the late 1970s before serving as an assistant for 20 years to both Paul Nix and Hal Baird, while Laval was Skip Bertman‘s top assistant from 1984 through 1993 before serving seven seasons as head coach at Louisiana-Monroe.
LSU closes its regular season May 16-18 with a three-game series at Arkansas, and then heads to the SEC Tournament in Birmingham May 21-25.