Friday night has suddenly become fright night for Tennessee's baseball team.
The No. 4 Volunteers had a second straight undesirable outing from starting pitcher AJ Causey and fell to Auburn 9-5 in the series opener before a crowd of 5,119 inside Plainsman Park. The transfer from Jacksonville State allowed eight runs on eight hits against the Tigers while only recording four outs.
Causey took a 5-0 record and a 1.91 earned run average into last weekend's series opener against Georgia at Lindsey Nelson Stadium, which wound up being a 16-2 Bulldogs romp in seven innings, but he is now 5-2 with an ERA of 5.35.
The Vols dropped to 24-6 overall and to 5-5 in Southeastern Conference play with their sixth consecutive loss at Auburn, while the Tigers improved to 18-11 and 2-8. Auburn's four SEC series so far have come against No. 7 Vanderbilt, No. 1 Arkansas, No. 3 Texas A&M and the No. 4 Vols.
Tennessee opened the game with doubles by Christian Moore and Blake Burke to take a 1-0 lead, and a Kavares Tears one-out home run made it 3-0. Causey struck out the first two batters he faced, but the Tigers then produced five runs on five hits, getting homers from Ike Irish and Cade Belyeu.
The Vols pulled even at 5-5 in the second inning on Moore's two-run homer to center field, but Auburn forged ahead 8-5, and Causey was out of the game. Aaron Combs, Kirby Connell and Chris Stamos pitched well in relief for Tennessee, which was held scoreless over the last seven innings.
Game two of the three-game series at Plainsman Park is set for Saturday afternoon at 4:30 Eastern.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.