The Auburn baseball team stumbled into the midpoint of the Southeastern Conference season.

But AU head coach Tom Slater believes his team will regain its stride soon.

Auburn (22-16, 6-9 SEC) has lost four consecutive games: A weekend sweep at the hands of No. 15 South Carolina, plus Wednesday’s blowout home loss to South Alabama. The Tigers are currently in a three-way tie for eighth place in the SEC standings, with a tough series this weekend at Vanderbilt.

Vandy (26-10, 8-6) has won seven consecutive games. That streak includes an SEC sweep of Mississippi State last weekend.

But Slater believes his team matches up well with the Commodores, the defending SEC champions.

Both teams are in the top half of the league in hitting and the middle of the pack in pitching.

“If you compare our club and their club and you look at the overall numbers, they’re pretty similar,” Slater said. “It looks to be two teams that are very similar.”

One big difference is in star power. Slater calls Vandy third baseman Pedro Alvarez the best player in nation.

The Commodores struggled when Alvarez missed 23 games with a hand injury, but have been hot since his return at the start of April.

“Anytime you add a player of his caliber right in the middle of your lineup it makes everybody better,” Slater said. “They’re good, but when you add the best player in the country into the middle of your lineup, that makes you that much better.”

Auburn, meanwhile, will be without one of its most reliable hitters. Sophomore third baseman Joseph Sanders, who has missed the last two games with an illness, won’t make the trip to Nashville, Tenn., this weekend.

Sanders is fourth among AU hitters with a .321 batting average. His 12 doubles are the second-best total on the team.

Sanders’ replacement, David Cunningham, had back surgery in 2007 and is still recovering. But Slater said he’s pleased with the redshirt freshman, who is hitting .396 in 48 at-bats.

“He’s doing a good job,” Slater said. “He’s a good player. He’s still not what he was, but he’s still doing a pretty good job.”

Slater believes his team will bounce back from its recent struggles and return to the form it showed in winning three consecutive SEC series.

“The team emotionally is looking at it as though we’ve played five series and won three of them, (but) unfortunately, we’ve been swept twice,” Slater said.

“They are very resilient. They believe in themselves. They are very confident, quite honestly, heading into the second half.”

This weekend’s series begins today at 6 p.m. Saturday’s game, which begins at noon, will be televised by Comcast Sports Southeast (Channel 27 in Lee County).

| 737-2561