Road test for reeling Tigers

AUBURN | For 78 days Auburn competed and won at a rate that had the team ranked as one of the nation’s top five baseball programs.

In four short days, it all came crashing down.

Alabama swept Auburn in a doubleheader Saturday, made it a series sweep with a win Sunday and then the Tigers suffered a lethargic 8-2 loss at UAB Tuesday night. The four-game losing streak is the longest this season and has dropped Auburn to No. 14 nationally and on the brink of losing an opportunity to host an NCAA Regional for the first time in seven years.

Heading into this week’s series at No. 11 LSU, Auburn coach Butch Thompson is hoping his team will learn and eventually improve from the setback.

“Every really good ball club goes through adversity,” Thompson said. “I hope this will do nothing but galvanize our ball club and makes us stronger because we really haven’t been through this.”

The Tide had just two conference wins heading into last weekend’s series while Auburn was tied for first in the SEC.

“The fact that we came into the series expecting to win and possibly sweep, that’s where we went wrong,” Casey Mize said. “We expected too much and we looked too far ahead. You have to take it game by game. I think we need to compete in the moment and compete and win every pitch instead of looking too far ahead.”

Auburn, 32-18 overall and 14-10 in the SEC, is tied for fourth in the SEC but just a game behind second-place LSU (32-17, 15-9). LSU has won five of its last seven games including a sweep at Alabama two weeks ago and taking 2-of-3 from South Carolina last weekend.

LSU is second in the SEC in batting (.291), 10th in pitching (3.95 ERA) and first in fielding (.983). Junior right fielder Greg Deichmann leads the team with a .333 average, 16 home runs and 57 RBI. LSU has two of the SEC’s most talented starters in Alex Lange and Jared Poche’, and closer Hunter Newman has seven saves and a 0.98 ERA.

“They’re playing baseball pretty good and feeling like they’re starting to hit a rhythm,” Thompson said. “We need to do the same. We need to feel like we’re getting right back on track and getting after it. It’s a huge series.”

Auburn enters the series fifth in the conference in hitting (.284), 11th in pitching (4.12) and eighth in fielding (.973). Auburn will shake up its starting rotation for the series and could have a couple of injured players back in the starting lineup.

Shortstop Luke Jarvis, who has missed seven-straight starts with back spasms, may return to action against the Bayou Bengals.

“I still think it’s day-to-day but he is making the trip with us,” Thompson said. “We did some reports on Monday to make sure he doesn’t have something deeper like disc or structural. We still think it’s located in the muscle, which gives us a much more positive outcome.”

Daniel Robert, who is tied for the team lead with 37 RBI, missed most of the Alabama series with a pinched nerve in his elbow but returned to right field against the Blazers and has been cleared to start this weekend as Auburn tries to get back on the winning track.

“It’s the same game we’ve all been playing,” Robert said. “All year we’ve done a great job and four games ain’t going to derail us and end our season.”

Game times for the series are Thursday at 6:30 on ESPN2, Friday at 7 p.m. on SECN+ and WatchESPN and Saturday at noon on the SEC Network.