#17 Auburn @ #1 Tennessee

• FRI: 17-4 L
• SAT: 8-6 W
• SUN: 5-3 L

I said last week that even if Auburn drops the series, there is a chance that this is a positive Weekend overall. Welcome to that positive outcome, at least for the weekend. Out of the 27 innings played, 24 were the most competitive anyone has been able to put up against Tennessee all year in a weekend series. And if it weren’t for a pitcher that threw the second fastest pitch recorded (105.5 mph), I have a feeling that Auburn would have pushed across some runs in the last 3 innings on Sunday but the Tigers just couldn’t consistently get on base to mount a comeback.

All in all, the more talented team top to bottom won the series, sure. However, Tennessee knew they were in a dog fight this weekend and if you threw some truth serum on Tony Vitello, he doesn’t want to see this Auburn club again, especially with a trip to Omaha on the line or in the promise land. For the Tigers though, the name of the game is win at home and don’t get swept on the road. Mission accomplished on that one. Auburn was able to maintain their standing in the west and actually move into a tie for 3^rd with Georgia, LSU and Texas A&M after LSU’s walk off winner in the rubber match against Georgia. There is still very little separation between 3^rd and 10^th in the league which make the last 9 games extra important for the everyone.

HITTING PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEKEND

Bobby F****** Peirce. That’s all. Peirce had 3 hits on the weekend, which doesn’t sound great, however 2 of those 3 were absolute bombs including the 3 run dinger on Saturday night which gave the Tigers the W. Auburn has been searching for someone to protect Sonny and between Nate, Brooks and Peirce, they might have enough to scare teams away from the auto walk to the Big D.

PITCHING PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEKEND

Trace Bright has had a rough go of it in SEC play. Prior to last week against Carolina, Trace ate the L in the 5 previous games and only had a positive start against Texas A&M arguably. In the past 2 week however, he had gone 5.2 innings of work and has held Carolina and Tennessee now to 3 earned runs. This weekend he uped himself and struck out 8 Vols during his outing and earned…I stress EARNED, the win over the top ranked team in the country after a rough night for the Auburn pitching staff on Friday. Hats off young man. I have a feeling Auburn will have to have this Trace Bright going forward if they want to continue playing in June.

ON DECK

If there was ever a week that Auburn needed to have no midweek games, this is it. Finals are going on and all that fun stuff but between Hayden Mullins getting his throwing arm looked at and Blake Burkhalter getting his hammy worked on, a solid week’s rest for everyone is absolutely necessary before Arkansas comes calling. It’s a Friday-Sunday Series this week with a 7pm first pitch on Friday on the SECN+, 4:30 pm on the SEC Network and Sunday at 1 on the Network+. Keep it tuned to the Musk Machine (Twitter) for updates if we get any on Mullins and Burky but I would think that the Tigers keep it close to the vest till Friday on the status of those guys. Hopefully it’s a week off at the most and the Tigers see them back for the Alabama series at worst, but it really needs to be all hands on deck for this weekend against Arkansas as the Tigers make a push to host at Plainsman Park that first weekend in June.

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