Auburn’s pitching rotation coming into focus
With six days until the season-opener against Sacramento State, Auburn’s pitching rotation is nearly settled.
AUBURN | Butch Thompson is not quite ready to make it official but he’s just about settled on his pitching rotation for next weekend’s three-game series against Sacramento State.
And it’s likely junior Cole Lipscomb will take the mound for Friday’s season opener.
“I think it’s a high probability,” said Thompson, Auburn’s first-year coach. “He’s been there before, he’s had success. I think he deserves that opportunity.”
Lipscomb earned All-SEC honors last season with an 8-2 record and 2.53 ERA with 91 strikeouts in 92.2 innings. In his final warmup of preseason practice Friday, Lipscomb allowed just three unearned runs in 4.0 innings.
“I think I threw pretty well today. It was a nice outing before we start next Friday,” Lipscomb said. “These colder games early in the season it’s really important to be commanding pitches and really letting the defense work. The defense works a lot better when you’re consistently in the zone and throwing strikes and that’s what I’m going to be focused on.”
Senior Justin Camp and junior college transfer Gabe Klobosits are expected to follow Lipscomb in the weekend rotation to start the season. Camp served as Auburn’s closer last season. Klobosits was 7-2 with a 2.33 ERA and 82 strikeouts in 77.1 innings last season at Galveston College.
Thompson likes to use two of his top five pitchers as late-inning relievers and recently moved junior college transfer Ben Braymer and true freshman Casey Mize into the bullpen to fill those roles.
“I thought (Braymer’s) stuff went to another level seeing him in that role,” Thompson said. “Casey Mize is another guy that’s thrown the ball as well as anybody.”
Two more junior college transfers, Andrew Mitchell and Tavo Rodriguez, along with true freshman Daniel Sprinkle and junior Izaac Yarbrough are also expected to fill key roles on the staff.
“I think we pitched the ball really well last year and from that team I think we’ve even built more, got more pitchers so I think this could be a potentially dangerous pitching staff as long as we stay healthy and everybody accepts their roles,” Lipscomb said.
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