Friday, March 30, 2007

On Sportsmanship

I’m at Plainsman Park for the opening game of this weekend’s Auburn-Ole Miss series. Mike Bianucci just tied the game at two with a big two-run home run in the bottom of the fourth inning.

As Bianucci crossed the plate, he turned to his teammates, who were gathered around home plate as usual, and bowed. Not a big exaggerated gesture...just put his hands together and bent forward from the waist.

It’s something AU’s players have done after almost every homer this season. And it’s been bothering me from the start.

Tom Slater worked as an assistant coach under Hal Baird at Auburn and Pat McMahon at Florida, two guys who are all about respecting the game—sometimes to the detriment of their players having fun. To his credit, Slater is a bit more relaxed than that. He encourages his players to celebrate when they or their teammates do well, which is nice to see. After all, the game should be fun for the players.

But there’s a big difference between celebrating a home run and showing up the other team. And what Bianucci did—what Auburn hitters have been doing all season—sure looks to me like showing up the other team. I don’t think Baird would have put up with it. I’m surprised Slater does.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Changes ahead

Interesting shakeup on the Auburn baseball team’s pitching staff...Sophomore Bryan Woodall goes from the Friday night starter’s spot to the bullpen. Taylor Thompson, AU’s usual midweek starter, is the Sunday starter. And Paul Burnside and Evan Crawford move up in the rotation: Burnside goes from Saturday to Friday and Crawford goes from Sunday to Saturday.

That’s a lot of change. But a lot of change is exactly what AU’s pitching needed. Anyone who watched Auburn get swept in three games by Florida knows the Tigers’ pitching staff was in serious disarray. I like Tom Slater’s rationale for the move...I’ve always been a sucker for a convincing argument.

Basically, Slater was saying that Woodall—who’s been Auburn’s most consistent starter despite some struggles in SEC play—is good for 4-5 strong innings every start (Though that’s not exactly great for a No. 1 SEC starter.)

So Slater’s argument is this: Why not spread those 4-5 innings out in a series? Coaches say Woodall’s got a rubber arm: He always feels good after he pitches and he can pitch twice on a weekend if it’s in limited innings. Out of the bullpen, he can pitch in big spots: When AU is trying to protect a lead in the 6th, 7th or 8th innings, for example. And he can

As an argument, it’s great. As baseball? Well, we’ll see.

But remember, Slater used a similar philosophy in 2005, when AU snuck into the NCAA Tournament. That year, John Madden and Michael Nix were Auburn’s most consistent pitchers, and Slater pitched them every chance he got. Those two made a much bigger impact than any of Auburn’s starters. I’m not saying this move will pay off like that, but it’s certainly worth a try, because the original plan clearly wasn’t paying off.

In other news, Slater is clearly sick of hearing about his team’s so-called “16-game losing streak” in SEC play. I’m not wild about the phrasing either...last year’s 10-game losing streak is obviously separate from this year’s 6-game slide. But the fact is, AU has lost its last 16 SEC games.

Of course, Slates doesn’t see it that way. During Thursday’s weekly press conference, he was asked if he was going to do anything to change things “because of the 16-game losing streak.”

His reponse made it pretty clear he’d like that phrase to go away:

“I’m tired of talking about last year. Last year’s team stunk. That was last year. It’s got nothing to do with this year. Hopefully that answers your question.”

I mention this because I’ve never heard a coach actually use the phrase “last year’s team stunk” on the record with reporters. It was pretty cool.

Of course, it begs the question: With two starting pitchers, three key relievers and six regular position players back from last year’s team, what does that say about this year’s group?

I guess we’ll find out as the season continues.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

We’re talkin’ baseball…

The Auburn baseball team won at Mercer on Tuesday, 5-1. It wasn’t exactly SEC-level competition, but Mike Bianucci had his best day in a while, going 3-for-5 with a home run and four RBI.

Even more encouraging for Auburn was the pitching: Taylor Thompson allowed one run in six innings, though he did walk four batters. Bryan Woodall, who’s the closest thing AU has to an ace at the moment, pitched an inning to help him get ready for Friday’s start against Ole Miss. And Luke Greinke made his fifth appearance of the season, allowing one baserunner and no runs over the final two innings.

Still, that doesn’t mean everything’s OK for Auburn. The Tigers are 0-6 in the SEC and have lost their last 16 SEC games counting a 10-game losing streak to end last season. That’s a long way from OK. Pitching has been the problem lately. Auburn gave up 19 walks and 38 hits last weekend against Florida; AU relievers walked in three runs in one inning last Saturday. And let’s not forget eight hit batters over the weekend. That’s a lot of baserunners. And that’s a problem.

Considering how AU’s pitchers—especially the relievers—threw strikes in the preconference season, their recent control problems are a surprise. So’s the shaky defense; for the first five weeks of the season this was the best defensive team of the Tom Slater era, but against Florida, AU committed nine errors.

After Saturday’s extremely ugly 12-9 loss, Slater had a great postgame comment that pretty well summed up the performance this weekend:

“We set the game of baseball back as far as it’s ever been set back. Lousy defense, lots of errors, lots of walks. It’s not good baseball. It was a poor job by our club today.”

Obviously, inconsistent pitching is the biggest problem for Auburn. Unfortunately for the Tigers, there’s not exactly a magic bullet to solve this problem. AU is depending on a lot of unproven pitchers: Freshmen Thompson and Scott Shuman both play big roles, and so do Justin Bristow and Josh Blake, who didn’t pitch last season. Then there’s Brett Butts, who was solid this weekend but had problems last season, and senior Chris Dennis, who has allowed at least one run in all but two of his 10 appearances this season.

Slater says he still believes this is a good team and that he won’t make any big changes. (Though he said that before Sunday’s game, then promptly replaced Andy Bennett with Joseph Sanders at first base.) And he knows his players better than I do.

But getting consistent production from that group of guys—who, to be honest, have been consistently inconsistent so far—looks likely to be a season-long problem. Starting Friday against Ole Miss at Plainsman Park, we’ll find out just how serious a problem it’ll be.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Basketball thoughts

Monday was a big day in the world of college basketball. First things first: Liberty hired Ritchie McKay today. Auburn associate head coach John Cooper was considered for the job before Liberty tapped McKay, the former New Mexico head coach who was fired in February.

It’s too bad for Coop, but good for Auburn. Keeping this staff together can only help a young AU team that should return everyone next season.

In national news, the Associated Press All-America team was announced Monday afternoon. The big news? Freshmen Kevin Durant and Greg Oden made the team. Durant was the only unanimous selection, which is impressive in and of itself. But even more impressive is this: Durant and Oden are only the third and fourth freshmen ever named AP first-team All-Americas. (The others, if you’re wondering, were Oklahoma’s Wayman Tisdale in 1983 and LSU’s Chris Jackson in ‘89.)

I was glad to see Chris Lofton of Tennessee was named second-team All-America. Lofton was probably the second-most impressive player I saw in person this season (behind Texas A&M’s Acie Law, a first-teamer). Lofton is an absolutely unbelievable shooter...anyone who watched UT’s NCAA Tournament win against Virginia saw that he’s totally unafraid to shoot anytime from anywhere.

Joakim Noah was also named second-team All-America, continuing a strange kind of media fascination with him. He’s a good player, but second-team All-America? For a guy who averaged 12.2 points and 8.5 rebounds per game? (By comparison Al Horford, who averaged 13.2 and 9.2 and was generally acknowledged to be the more dangerous player on both ends of the floor, was a third-team All-America. Weird.)

And, in case you were wondering, Auburn has exactly one first-team AP All-America in 101 seasons of basketball: Chris Porter in 1999.

I’ll be back Tuesday with some thoughts on Auburn baseball, which plays at Mercer on Tuesday night. Take it easy ‘til then.

Friday, March 23, 2007

An update…and a correction

Last week, I covered the Auburn-Alabama gymnastics meet. I wrote a story in the paper and blogged a little about it here.

One of the big storylines of the meet was the serious injury to Auburn’s Carmen Nelms, who went to the hospital after landing awkwardly off vault during warmups. In the paper, I mentioned that she cried and held her ankle in agony; which made sense, because she was surrounded by a knot of fellow gymnasts, all crying up a storm. But I’ve since been assured that Nelms didn’t shed so much as one tear, which is pretty darned impressive.

In fact, it’s even more impressive than I thought: I’ve been told her actual injury was, and I quote, “An open dislocation of the ankle.” Which means, for those of you who aren’t medical students, that her dislocated ankle came out of her skin.

And yet she didn’t cry. I’m not gonna lie, I’m close to crying just thinking of that happening to me. Ugh.

So the next time someone tries to tell you there’s no one tougher than a football player, remember 5-foot-1 Carmen Nelms and her open dislocation of the freakin’ ankle.

Nice work, Carmen. You win this week’s Chew Nails and Spit Out Tacks Award for toughest athlete around. Congratulations.