LSU spokesman Bill Franques announced LSU’s series opener against Alabama Friday, scheduled for 7 p.m., has been postponed until Saturday. The two teams will play a doubleheader Saturday at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Prior to the postponement announcement, the game was in a lightning delay and a new start time had not been determined. Rain was sporadic at Alex Box Stadium, but every lightning strike within eight miles of the stadium added 30 minutes to the delay, per NCAA rules.
LSU would have been forced to make decision by no later than 9:15 p.m., adhering to the Southeastern Conference’s 10 p.m. curfew.
Sunday’s game is currently scheduled for 1 p.m.
Scheduled to make his first Friday start of the season, sophomore right-hander Alex Lange will start in the first game of the doubleheader, followed by junior left-hander Jared Poche’ in the second game.
Because the Tigers are scheduled to start their next SEC series against Texas A&M on Thursday, March 24, LSU coach Paul Mainieri is concerned about who will pitch first in that series.
While Mainieri wouldn’t “speculate” on who that will be, either Poche’ or Lange would be returning to mound against the Aggies on four days of rest, which isn’t ideal.
“Obviously, it’s not the way you would like to set it up,” Mainieri said. “That’s why we desperately wanted to get the game in tonight, of course. It’s a delicate balance because you’re focusing on this game. You want to give yourself the best chance to win this game, but you have to have an eye on the future, too. Whoever was going to start tonight was going to come back on one-day-less rest than normal already. Now, by pushing it to Saturday, somebody is going to have come back on two days less than normal rest…That’s not the optimum situation that you want to have.
Despite the altered schedule, Mainieri is optimistic about tomorrow’s forecast. Mainieri also expects Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard to start junior right-hander Geoffrey Bramblett in the first game.
“I’ve also learned in a lot of years of coaching that it’s not a matter of what you want. It’s a matter of what you are dealt. We wanted to play tonight. Everybody was excited for a lot of reasons to play, but the weather didn’t cooperate. You can’t cry about it. You just got to deal with. We’re going to worry about tomorrow, tomorrow, and take it one game at a time. When this weekend’s series is over, we’ll figure out what to do.”