Soft-tossing righty delivers big during Friday-night starts

AUBURN - With two weeks left in the regular season, Auburn's baseball team remains in the race for
the SEC tournament. If not for a soft-spoken redshirt freshman left-hander from Bob Jones High School,
the Tigers almost certainly wouldn't be contending.

In an Auburn season of ups and downs, Grant Dayton has been there week in and week out. As the
Tigers' Friday night starter, he has six of their 10 wins. He hasn't suffered a loss since the SEC opener
at Florida and is 7-1 overall with a 3.66 ERA.

When Paul Burnside, last season's ace, suffered a broken collarbone in a freakish fall in December,
pitching coach Butch Thompson wasn't sure who the new No. 1 would be. He considered Luke Greinke,
Scott Shuman and even true freshman Cory Luckie.

But when Dayton's work out of the bullpen couldn't be ignored, he got his first college start in Auburn's
first SEC game. After three dominant innings, he was roughed up by the Gators. He hasn't been roughed up since.

Auburn (26-23, 10-14) goes into this weekend's series at Ole Miss (31-19, 12-12) one game out of
eighth place. The top eight teams advance to Hoover for the SEC Tournament.

"It's meant everything," Thompson said. "He's given us a chance to win on Friday nights, and that's the
toughest thing. That really sets you up well for the rest of the weekend."

Thompson said Dayton deserves All-SEC consideration.

"I think he's thrown about as well as anybody," Thompson said. "He has a strikeout an inning.
He's been durable. He's showed up every week."

Dayton got Jones' attention in high school when he pitched a perfect game as a junior and a no-hitter
as a senior. Though he didn't throw particularly hard - and still doesn't - he still gets hitters out with his fastball.

"He has such good spin on his fastball that it gets on guys,"Thompson said. "He probably threw 118
pitches last week and 105 of them were fastballs. That's almost unheard of in this league."

Dayton endured elbow problems last year. The soreness didn't depart until he when he went to play summer baseball.

"It was real tough watching all my friends play and not being in the dugout," Dayton said. "I guess it was
good. It came back strong in summer ball and I haven't had any problems since."

Dayton credited his work with volunteer coach Scott Sullivan, a former Auburn pitcher who spent
10 years in the majors.

"Everything he says, I take it with passion," Dayton said. "I love hearing him talk. When he helps me,
nothing bad is going to come out of it. Everything he says helps a lot."

Dayton will be in his normal spot Friday at Ole Miss. With Luckie out for the second consecutive
week with soreness in his forearm, sophomore Taylor Thompson starts Saturday and Greinke goes Sunday.