By Derek DeBurger

After a promising weekend series, Louisville will open its week with a Tuesday evening game against the EKU Colonels.

EKU is 1-6 on the season and has looked fairly unimpressive in almost all of their games. The Colonels have struggled on both sides of the field, failing to hold opponents to lower than five runs in every game and scoring more than five runs just twice. EKU’s only win came at home, and all of their road games have been against top-25 ranked teams. Weekday games can be very strange, but this could prove to be a good test to see how the Cards stack up to some of the top teams in the country.

The weekend series is against the 0-6 Youngstown State Penguins. Their games have been, comparatively, fairly ugly. The Penguins have only scored more than two runs once, and they’ve only held opponents to single-digit runs only twice. As a whole, the Penguins have been outscored 10-66 so far this season.

This week should be a good test of Louisville’s bullpen to see if the Cards can hold these opponents to similarly low numbers. I would look specifically to see how ace Sebastian Gongora does if he gets the start again on Friday. Gongora’s preseason hype has so far lived up to expectations, but I am looking to see if he can continue it and have his first great game of the season.

I’m also curious to see what lineups head coach Dan McDonnell goes within these games. The younger lineups provided a much bigger impact from the bats, but the fielding suffered.

Will McDonnell go with a mix of young and old to try to get the best of both worlds or will he stick with the youth and try to coach them up on the defensive side?

Whatever decision is made will be indicative of the approach the coaching staff will likely take for the rest of the season.

In the grand scheme of things, there is far more to lose this week than there is to gain. Louisville could have their second terrible week of the young season, or they could show a little more promise.

We’ll just have to wait to find out.

Photo // Chris Carter, U of L Athletics