It’s cold outside, and because it is, the baseball team’s scheduled doubleheader against Olivet Nazarene this Saturday is in limbo.

“Baseball is a warm-weather sport, but sometimes we’re forced to play in the cold,” Olivet Nazarene head coach Elliot Johnson said.

Eastern was supposed to be going down to Oklahoma this weekend where the temperature is currently about 60 degrees, as opposed to Feb 19-21, but Oklahoma bumped Eastern up on its schedule, and that gave Eastern an open date.

“We have never opened up this soon,” Panther head coach Jimmy Schmitz said. “The last few years we have opened up around March 20.”

Eastern’s next home game will be on March 22 against Chicago State. It still has a chance of being the first home game of the season for the Panthers.

Schmitz said he has to evaluate the condition of the field and see how the weather is going to be this weekend. He said if it’s too cold, the Panthers will not play.

But if the Panthers do play this weekend, senior Kyle Widegren and sophomore Mike Budde will start games one and two, respectively.

At Oklahoma, Widegren had a rough first outing in his only appearance of the year. He gave up four runs on six hits and walked four batters in 4.2 innings, setting his ERA at 7.71.

Last year Widegren went 8-4 with a 6.50 ERA, starting 11 games.

Schmitz said he hopes Widegren can go about five innings, then during spring break increase to seven and be ready to go as long as possible when the conference season starts.

Olivet will counter Widegren with senior Rick Weber.

Weber was 12-0 last season in 17 appearances, 12 of which were starts. He threw 11 complete games and five complete-game shutouts.

Budde started game three against Oklahoma and pitched four innings while only giving up one unearned run. But that one unearned run was enough for him to take the loss for the Panthers. Olivet will counter Budde with junior Jay Sayes.

Sayes started 10 games and won seven for Nazarene last season. He had seven complete games and two shutouts. Sayes and Weber are from Louisiana and Arkansas, respectively. Of the 26 players on Olivet’s roster, only eight of them are from Illinois.

“We recruit wherever we find players we want to sign,” Johnson said.