Not happening

Apparently, it's going to take more than a season for John Pawlowski to clean up the mess that has become the Auburn baseball program. Who knew?

Well, we all know that now, at least, after Auburn got swept at home by Ole Miss this weekend. Money graf from the OA-News story:

That final Justin Hargett strikeout tied the club’s all-time record with seven games to play and capped yet another lopsided loss to Ole Miss. The 11-4 setback marked the Tigers’ seventh straight conference loss, their 10th of their last 11 and the third time being on the wrong end of a three-game sweep.

WHEEEEEEEE! Fun! Gribble said the result "didn’t change much regarding Auburn’s status to make the SEC Tournament," but uh ... really? Because right now Auburn's 2.5 games back of eighth-place Vanderbilt, themselves just swept by South Carolina. (This was not good for Auburn--SC entered the weekend as one of the teams they could catch.) With just two series remaining, Auburn will have to make up two games on Vandy in one series and one in another, as opposed to a game in each series if they'd managed just the one win in the series against the Rebels.

I'm sure Plainsman Parking Lot will have a more incisive breakdown of how likely that is, but I'm going to go ahead and take a stab at it here: not bloody likely. For one thing, one of the 'Dores two remaining series are against SEC East cellar-dwellers Tennessee. Hard to see them losing too much ground there. For another: Auburn is playing just miserably at the moment. The combined score of the three games against the Rebels, a series (again) played in the friendly confines of Plainsman Park? 28-8. The closest game of the three was decided by six runs. Yes, Ole Miss is good. They're not that good. (At least, I don't think so.)

And so barring a truly incredible last-minute turnaround--the Tigers travel to Lexington next week and then host Alabama on the season's final weekend--Auburn will miss Hoover once again. So it goes. These things do, as they say, take time.

Hey, softball. It's been a while since the JCCW has checked in on the Tiger softball team, but I'm forgiving myself since it's been kind of another run-of-the-mill season: Auburn finished the regular season at 9-19 in SEC play, 29-26 overall, and will face top-ranked Florida in the opening round of what looks to be a very quick SEC tournament. I know even less about college softball than I do baseball, but after falling just a game short of .500 in the SEC last year, I'm assuming 9-19 has to be seen as a step back this year.