Paul Skenes, Tre' Morgan reveal how they approached lengthy weather delay vs. Kentucky

There are many different ways to approach a weather delay. During the seven-hour delay Saturday during the Baton Rouge Super Regional, LSU first baseman Tre’ Morgan and star starting pitcher Paul Skenes approached the delay two different ways.

“For the first delay, I went home, played with the dog and got some food, came back, and then warmed up again,” Skenes said after the game. “Then for the second delay I kind of sat around, did what I needed to do to stay warm. Obviously didn’t know when the game was going to start, but I was pretty much warm the whole time.”

The game was originally set for a first pitch around 2 p.m. CT. But then the game got pushed back to 8:06 p.m. CT and then 9:06 p.m. CT. This was despite the fact the bad weather never came around.

Morgan said head coach Jay Johnson preached an approach that would allow them to stay ready for when the time came to play after the weather delay.

“It was huge for us when we were in the locker room,” Morgan said. “The whole team was pretty much together. We were watching other games going by. But Coach Johnson told us to stay locked in, and as soon as we get the window to go, to be ready. He challenged us to make sure we were ready, so we felt the need to go out there and show him.”

When the game finally started, Skenes and Morgan performed like there had not been a delay at all.

Morgan was 4-for-5 at the plate with two home runs, three runs scored and four RBI out of the three-hole. It was the type of performance he will remember for a long time.

Skenes threw 7.2 innings of shutout baseball while allowing just four hits with nine strikeouts on the day. It was the type of performance he has been doing almost every week for the past few months. The potential No. 1 pick in this year’s MLB Draft said he didn’t feel any extra pressure due to the weather delay.

“No, not at all,” Skenes said. “The whole time I was sitting in there for the delay, all I was thinking is that we’re just going to get 11,000. I don’t know how many people were at the game, but 12,452 people are going to go home and drink beer and then come back and be even louder.”