The West is best. The Western Division essentially swept a weekend of interdivision showdowns, taking all six matchups. All but one of those series (which we'll get to in a moment) was decided on a 2-1 margin, so it wasn't precisely a wipeout for the East. But 5-13 is not precisely the best way to start league play, and could bode poorly for the East teams going forward. Again, though, this is one weekend; let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The weekend, does, however, present an interesting situation: A five-way tie for first in the East and a five-way tie for second in the West. This is, to an extent, not out of the realm of reason for any baseball division one weekend into the season, but it should make next week's round even more interesting -- only two interdivision series (Mississippi State at Georgia, LSU at South Carolina) mean the separation should begin.
Woo Pig Sooey. Or whatever they say in Fayetteville. The Razorbacks were the only team to get a sweep in the first weekend of SEC play, putting Arkansas atop the league after winning three against Florida. This was, um, not exactly the expected order of things, but as we will see soon enough, there was little that could have been anticipated about this weekend.
Florida scored a total of 10 runs over the weekend, which might not seem too bad to those of you familiar with wooden bats, but isn't much when you're playing with aluminium. Only two teams scored fewer runs this weekend -- oddly enough, Kentucky and LSU, who played each other.
At least this time, it wasn't at home. How was the weekend for No. 1 (or potential No. 1) Georgia? Ask the Mayor.
O.K., this getting-the-crap-kicked-out-of-us-by-Alabama-when-we’re-in-the-running-for-No.-1 business is getting really old really fast!
The combined score -- 28-20 -- isn't quite as bad as the previous incident Kyle references (the 41-30 football matchup between these two), but it still almost certainly means Georgia will fall in the polls. And the last game, a 10-8 win, isn't exactly the kind of game where you can rest easy in victory.
Rain, rain, go away. All but one of the weekend's matchups -- what is wrong with you, Arkansas and Florida? -- had at least one game postponed. This led to an abundance of doubleheaders, and actually made the league somewhat fortunate that all the games were played.
South Carolina and Mississippi State had the oddest weekend. With Friday's game postponed due to rain, the teams scheduled a doubleheader for Saturday. The Bulldogs won the first game -- so far, so good -- and were leading the second game ... when it was suspended due to fog.
Fog. That might be the first time I've ever seen a baseball game suspended due to fog.
In any case, the teams wrapped up that game Sunday, then finished the series with a seven-inning matchup Sunday.
Scoreboard after the jump.
|
Series |
Game (Day) |
Result |
| Kentucky at LSU (LSU 2-1) | Game 1 (Friday) | LSU 5, Kentucky 3 |
| Game 2 (Sunday) | Kentucky 5, LSU 2 | |
| Game 3 (Sunday) | LSU 3, Kentucky 1 | |
| Florida at Arkansas (Arkansas 3-0) | Game 1 (Friday) | Arkansas 11, Florida 4 |
| Game 2 (Saturday) | Arkansas 8, Florida 4 | |
| Game 3 (Sunday) | Arkansas 4, Florida 2 | |
| Auburn at Tennessee (Auburn 2-1) | Game 1 (Friday) | Auburn 4, Tennessee 2 |
| Game 2 (Sunday) | Auburn 8, Tennessee 5 | |
| Game 3 (Sunday) | Tennessee 7, Auburn 1 | |
| Georgia at Alabama (Alabama 2-1) | Game 1 (Saturday) | Alabama 9, Georgia 5 |
| Game 2 (Saturday) | Alabama 11, Georgia 5 | |
| Game 3 (Sunday) | Georgia 10, Alabama 8 | |
| Mississippi at Vanderbilt (Mississippi 2-1) | Game 1 (Friday) | Mississippi 9, Vanderbilt 3 |
| Game 2 (Sunday) | Mississippi 6, Vanderbilt 1 | |
| Game 3 (Sunday) | Vanderbilt 7, Mississippi 6 | |
| South Carolina at Mississippi State (Mississippi State 2-1) | Game 1 (Saturday) | Mississippi State 13, South Carolina 6 |
| Game 2 (Sunday) | Mississippi State 10, South Carolina 3 | |
| Game 3 (Sunday) | South Carolina 5, Mississippi State 4 |