No. 6 Auburn will begin the second half of Southeastern Conference play with a three-game baseball series at No. 7 Florida, starting April 15. The games are scheduled to take place Thursday through Saturday at Condron Family Ballpark.
The matchup is significant as both teams are ranked in the top ten nationally and are contending for higher positions within the SEC standings. Auburn enters the series with a record of 25-11 overall and an 8-7 mark in conference play, while Florida holds a 27-11 overall record and is 9-6 in SEC games.
Head coach Butch Thompson said, “The rest of the year, I’m trying to sell to our guys that it’s an unbelievable opportunity, and it’s all about us playing ball. We’ve been through a lot – the good, the bad, the ugly, and everywhere in between – and we’ve learned a ton of lessons with our ballclub. This is just an awesome part of something they’ve earned, and they got to go play at some great places and play some amazing teams. We want to consider ourselves one of those types of teams, too. It’s time to just go play ball. It’s time to turn it loose, learn some lessons and function collectively as a group.”
Auburn’s pitching staff leads the nation in strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.45), WHIP (1.13), and walks allowed per nine innings (2.51). The staff has not allowed a run over its last 21 innings dating back to its previous series against Kentucky.
The Tigers’ offense has also performed well recently, hitting .353 over their last eight games with six home runs across their two most recent contests.
Florida enters this weekend having swept two conference opponents so far this season and recently won a series at Georgia. The Gators’ pitching staff boasts seven shutouts on the year with game one starter Aidan King holding a team-best ERA among starters at 1.74.
Looking ahead, Auburn faces a challenging stretch as twelve out of its next fifteen games will be played on the road—all remaining SEC matchups are against teams currently ranked in major polls’ top fifteen.
