AUBURN - The grills were fired up and the seats at Falcon Park were just about filled. Opening day of Auburn Doubledays baseball began on Tuesday and the setting was perfect. Well, except for the rain.

After nearly two weeks of summer-time weather, scattered lightning in the middle of a downpour put a temporary crimp in a game that Doubledays fans have waited nearly 10 months to see. The score between Auburn and rival Batavia was tied at one after two innings. The game will be picked up from that point on Thursday at 6 p.m. followed by the scheduled game with the Muckdogs that will go seven innings.

For the one and only Doubledays starter who was making his professional debut in the less-than-ideal conditions, Darin Mastroianni shrugged off the rain ruining his first game out of college.

“I just wanted to go out and enjoy it,” he said. “There are 76 games left including this one, we've got a long way to go, so it's really no big deal.”

The 6-0, 190-pound second baseman kicked off the season in the leadoff position and went 0-for-2 on two infield groundouts. Mastroianni played with the University of Southern Indiana last season, but said the transition to minor league baseball wasn't as hard as he thought it would be.

“I really thought I'd be (nervous), but I wasn't,” Mastroianni said. “It was just like every other game, there are always little butterflies at first, but when I got out there, they went away.”

Designated hitter Paul Franko roped the first hit of the 2007 Doubledays season off Muckdogs hurler Clayton Mortensen in the second and soon scored the first run of the year on a Leance Soto RBI double.

The two teams play 12 times this season - the Doubledays hope to fare better against them than they did last season when they beat Batavia just four times.

D-days Today

Record: 0-0

Next: at Batavia, today, 7 p.m.

Radio: 1590 AM