May 9, 2008

PREGAME - 5:30PM CT
Here we are in Oxford for the final Friday night road game of the regular season for the Auburn Tigers, and its a big one. Auburn enters the weekend in 11th in the SEC but is just a game out of 8th, holding the tie-breaker ove eighth-place Kentucky and Tennessee, who happen to play each other this weekend in Knoxville. Think there will be some scoreboard watching going on around the league these next three days?

Auburn will send R-Fr. LHP Grant Dayton to the mound tonight. The Huntsville native is already 6-1 in league play and should he pick up a win tonight he would be Auburn's first seven-game winner in league play since Chris Morrison in 1995....that is a long time!

Swayze Field is one of the nicest venues in the league, and it remains that today despite the eye-sores due to construction going on here. By the time Auburn returns here in 2010 the grandstands will extend all the way down the lines. The current grandstands are decked out in Ole Miss colors, alternating blue and red seat sections. A change for this year has the bullpens beyond the outfield wall with a screen fence so that you can see who is warming up from the stands. And the big screen in left-center....WOW!

Dimensions for the park are 330' down the lines, 365 to the gaps and 390 to dead center

Here is tonight's starting lineup:
Mummeyu...cf
Bianucci...rf [HR in 3 straight games]
Morris...dh [recently invited to team USA tryouts]
Sanders...1b [on a 13-game hitting streak]
Fletcher...lf
Cunningham...3b
Hall...ss
Hargett...2b
Jenkins...c
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Dayton...p

by Dan Froehlich, Auburn Media Relations