Baseball Set to Host Auburn in SEC Home Opener

3/23/2006

Vanderbilt hosts Auburn in its SEC home opener this weekend at Hawkins Field. The Commodores and Tigers will open the series tomorrow night at 6 p.m. and will play on Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.

Saturday’s contest will be televised regionally on CSS with Voice of the Commodores Joe Fisher providing play-by-play and local sports talk show host and former Vanderbilt player Willy Daunic providing analysis.

Vanderbilt has won eight of nine and 10 of its last 12 games entering this weekend, batting .304 in the last six games with four homers and 42 runs scored (7 per game).

Auburn is 12-12 on the year and 1-2 in the SEC after dropping two of three to then No. 9 South Carolina last weekend in Auburn. The Tigers rebounded with a 6-4 win over Samford in midweek action on Tuesday.
Designated hitter Mike Bianucci leads the club with a .394 batting average to go along with five homers and 16 RBI. The Tigers are hitting .275 as a team with 16 homers and 123 runs scored on the year (5.1 per game).
Auburn?s pitching rotation for the weekend was still to be determined for Friday and Saturday, with freshman lefthander Evan Crawford (2-3, 3.90 ERA) slated to start on Sunday. The Tigers have a 4.42 team ERA with 165 strikeouts and 84 walks in 218 innings.

Second baseman Alex Feinberg has been one of the key sparkplugs in the Commodores recent offensive success. He suffered a shoulder injury early in the second game of the season against USC on Feb. 18 and missed the next nine games before returning to action against Creighton on March 7.

Since that time the Commodores have won eight of 10 games with Feinberg’s hitting ability on full display. He is 15-for-37 (.405) with a double, a triple and seven runs scored in that stretch and has yet to make an error in the field in 25 chances this year. He went 6-for-13 against Ole Miss last weekend and added two more hits on Tuesday against Belmont to bring his average to .390 entering this weekend.

Sophomore Cody Crowell provided the Commodores with a needed boost last Saturday with a stellar day on the mound. Ole Miss had just tied the series with a 5-1 win in the first game of a doubleheader and all of the momentum on their side.

Crowell was masterful in his start in game two of the doubleheader as he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before giving up an infield hit. He would settle on a two-hit complete game shutout in the Commodores series clinching 5-0 win. Crowell struck out five and walked only one batter while facing only 28 batters, one over the minimum. He was extremely efficient, needing only 86 pitches in the complete game effort. On the season, he is 2-0 with a team best 2.05 ERA.

Another Commodore that is continuing to show overall improvement is sophomore designated hitter/catcher Shea Robin. Robin who is making the conversion from the infield to catcher this year has provided some clutch hits during the recent winning skein.

He is 10-for-21 with two doubles, a homer and eight RBI with five runs scored in his last seven games. Robin has also garnered some valuable experience behind the plate filling in for senior Brian Hernandez from time to time. He has thrown out four of eight base runners attempting to steal on the defensive side and is 7-for-15 (.467) with runners in scoring position this year. He enters the weekend with a .347 batting average in 15 games.