Tim Corbin names Vanderbilt baseball's rotation against Oklahoma State

Tim Corbin threw a curveball with his starting rotation for No. 2 Vanderbilt baseball's opening weekend against No. 8 Oklahoma State.

According to Corbin, junior right-hander Chris McElvain will start Friday, junior right-hander Nick Maldonado on Saturday and freshman left-hander Carter Holton on Sunday. Absent from the rotation are last year's returning starters, sophomores Patrick Reilly and Christian Little. The duo are not injured, according to Corbin.

"I think everyone on that staff, don't look at it too much," Corbin said. " ... Where you can kind of get into a season and develops from knowing roles and then understand that maybe you can kind of plan ahead. We can't do that right now, just because we don't really have any known roles outside of the three people that I mentioned that we're going to start."

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On Reilly and Little, Corbin said, "They're doing fine, but we've got some pieces that are very comparable, very close."

McElvain had a 4.31 ERA last year in 22 appearances, including one start. Maldonado had a 2.31 ERA as the team's co-closer along with Luke Murphy, who has since moved onto the pros.

Holton, a freshman, impressed in a fall outing against North Carolina and the Black and Gold intrasquad series. 

"I wanted to see how he handled himself against North Carolina," Corbin said, "so we put him out there in the fall. And he was fine. But I just think we would never put a kid in a position to represent the team if you didn't if you didn't think he was ready to represent the team."

Said McElvain of earning the Friday nod: " Very excited. But at the end of the day, it comes down to everybody pitching and doing their job. So I think that's the most important part. It doesn't really matter who's out there."

Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.