LSU baseball game rained out, DH set today

• By CARL DUBOIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 3, 2008 - Page: 2C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — Steady rain and the prospect of more Friday night convinced Kentucky baseball coach John Cohen and LSU coach Paul Mainieri to wait until today to try to open their three-game Southeastern Conference series.

The coaches waited until about an hour after the scheduled first pitch, met on the field at Cliff Hagan Stadium and announced plans for a doubleheader of nine-inning games beginning at noon CDT today.

The forecast Friday night called for a 60 percent chance of rain overnight, an 80 percent chance today and a 30 percent chance tonight. Kentucky officials said they expected most of the bad weather to push through the area by midday, so they were hopeful there will be baseball today.

Both teams are expected to stick with the scheduled pitching rotations they announced Thursday. Cohen was ready to deviate from that Friday night, putting sophomore left-hander James Paxton on his lineup card for Game 1 of the series, but he’s expected to revert to the original order and go with junior left-hander Chris Rusin at noon today.

Rusin experienced tightness in his arm before and after throwing a complete game last weekend at Vanderbilt, so Cohen decided Friday to give him an extra night’s rest.

The downpour gave everybody an extra night’s rest, so Cohen sounded ready to put Rusin on the mound for the series opener as previously scheduled.