South Carolina will play Auburn tonight in the SEC Tournament at 5:30 Eastern. CSS is carrying the game, just like last night. You should probably be able to get it in Columbia on Time Warner on channel 506 or 519.
How’d They Get Here? We lost to Vandy 3-2 last night. They lost to Florida and then beat Georgia yesterday night.
Haven’t we played them already? Yes, we played them in Auburn in the middle of the season. South Carolina swept by scores of 12-5, 5-3 and 11-7.
Who’s pitching? The Gamecocks have their ace Michael Roth available and will start him. He’s almost on full rest, so he should be good to go. Here’s Roth’s outing against Auburn earlier this year:
| W/L | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K |
| W | 6.2 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 8 |
Auburn could start any number of pitchers. Jacobs and Koger have already started and Varnadore was used in relief. He may be used again in relief, but the likely pitchers are Dillon Ortman and Cory Luckie. Trey Cochran-Gill is also a possibility.
Ortman and Luckie both faced South Carolina in short relief earlier in the season.
| W/L | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | |
| Luckie | – | 1.1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Ortman | – | 0.2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Who are the good Auburn batters, again? Ryan Tella, Cullen Wacker and Creede Simpson are the main guys. Remember Auburn is predominantly an offensive team, so Garrett Cooper, Dan Glevenyak and Jay Gonzalez are all very capable as well.
So, are we going to win? We certainly need to. Most pundits thought USC needed 2 or 3 wins in Hoover to get a national seed. With Roth going, the Gamecocks have an opportunity to get one tonight, and they need it.
