Auburn Baseball welcomes Indiana to Plainsman Park this weekend, and if you’re wondering how you can watch the action live, you’ve come to the right place.
Auburn Baseball has had many questions surrounding its’ club heading into the 2023 campaign, which explains the lack of national recognition as Auburn is ranked in just two of the six national polls, with Perfect Game giving the Tigers their highest ranking at No. 17.
Auburn lost five pitchers from last season’s team in the first 12 rounds of the MLB Draft, which include closer [autotag]Blake Burkhalter[/autotag] and weekend starters [autotag]Mason Barnett[/autotag] and [autotag]Trace Bright[/autotag]. The Tigers will be missing some notable power from [autotag]Sonny DiChiara[/autotag] as well.
Even though Auburn has brought in some talent to hopefully fill those needs, head coach [autotag]Butch Thompson[/autotag] still says there are plenty of questions left to answer.
“Even if you do bring in a top 10 class, even if you have five freshmen in the top 100, (there is) still guesswork,” Thompson said Thursday.
Auburn has played many intrasquad scrimmages this winter and has held practices against one another leading up to the season opener. Thompson feels that this weekend’s series against the Hoosiers will erase the guesswork that he and his staff have had to use.
“I’m excited for the season and for our players to play somebody else, the guesswork goes away tomorrow,” Thompson said ahead of Auburn’s series with Indiana. “We will know more come next Monday than we’ve known for months (about) who we are.”
Thompson says that this weekend’s opponent, Indiana, will match up well with his club, and that they have pieces that will truly test his mostly inexperienced squad.
“They have seven of their nine position players back. They have real power, they have an 18-home run guy (Matthew Ellis), a 19-home run guy (Carter Mathison), they have two or three guys that can steal a base if you are not aware of how to stop the run game, or slow it down a bit,” Thompson said. “Big swings if you make cripple pitches and do not get into some good sequencing of quality pitches, you’ll pay for it.”
You will find key information about this weekend’s series below, including a how-to-watch guide featuring links to all three games, a how-to-listen guide, weekend matchups, and a projected starting lineup.