Nashua's Kyle Hannon strokes the ball the other way during Sunday's 3-0 loss to Norwich at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING).

NASHUA – Maybe Mother Nature gave the Nashua Silver Knight hitters what they needed:

A second straight day off.

The Knights game with Vermont was postponed due to Tuesday’s rain and now will be a doubleheader today, two seven inning games at 3 and 6 p.m. at Holman Stadium.

And the Knights, hitting a woeful .195 as a 6-14 team, may need the rest.

“We had a workout in the afternoon before the heavens opened,” Nashua general manager Cam Cook said. “Sometimes a rainout … Sometimes an extra day’s rest to clear your head. Even the best hitters can pick up a bat and it just feels like a foreign object in your hand. You’re like ‘How did I ever hit a baseball?’ Unfortunately you roll out of bed and it feels that way.

“A line I gave you four years ago was ‘Hitting is contagious, but so is not hitting.’ That’s kind of where we’re at right now.”

Cook, of course, played the game at Nichols College and was a key player on the back-to-back Knights teams that won FCBL titles in 2016-17. He also set the league record for hits in 2017, so he has some interesting thoughts on what’s going on with the lack of Nashua hitting.

“One of the things I noticed, in 2016 when I first came, or when the season first starts, or someone gets here late, the magic number feels like 20-25 at-bats,” Cook said. “Things start to click. You get used to the pitching a little bit.”

But this season’s roster turnover due to many players away at the start at conference tournaments, etc., hasn’t helped.

“We had so many temp players start the season,”Cook said. “They started to trend in the right direction. Then their temp contracts were up, and guys with full contracts came,and that almost put us back a week.”

And now?

“The guys that came late are starting to come around a little bit,” Cook said. “But it’s bizarre. You get pitched differently than you’re used to. No one knows who anyone is. Someone who was a good hitter in college, they’re probably used to seeing a ton of junk, a ton of curve balls, not getting a ton of fastballs. And now they’re surprised their getting so many pitches to hit they’re not ready to pull the trigger, looking for something else.”

Playing consistently, Cook said, helps.

“If you get four at-bats on Monday, and then you don’t get at-bats til Wednesday or Thursday, it’s tough,” Cook said. “You can’t get into a rhythm. BP only works on mechanics, and hitting is all timing.”

What he’s also seeing is the difference in how college coaches approach hitting.

“Every school kind of has their own approach,” Cook said. “There are some of these schools that play in small ballparks, and they’re like ‘I don’t want to hit the ball on the ground at all, we’re going to live and die by home runs, because that’s what we can do 25 games a year and we’re gonna figure it out on the road. And that’s a real sexy approach in baseball right now.”

But Cook says it’s starting to come back full circle, with an emphasis on getting players on base. And that’s what he hopes the Silver Knights approach will take. For example, Nashua won by a bases loaded walk the other night.

“We were taught in college, you’re two strike approach is you hands are three inches up from the knob of the bat, and you are on top of the plate to the point where the umpire will say, ‘OK, take a step back here.'”

And God forbid you should take a called third strike.

“If there’s one thing you’re going to do in this at-bat, it’s not get punched out looking,” Cook said.

Unfortunately, that’s happened a lot with Nashua this season. In fact, Nashua hitters have walked just 89 times, fewest in the league, and struck out 211 – second most. Clearly a trend.

“I think it’s that one big hit away, that one game where the floodgates open,” Cook said. “It’s contagious, man.”

If that’s the case, it’s time for the Silver Knights to start their own flu season.

TOP PITCHERS SET TO GO

Jackson said that Griffin Young, Tuesday’s scheduled Nashua starter, is still on schedule to make his 2021 season debut today, most likely in Game 1. Nick Guarino (1-1, 2.93), today’s scheduled starter, will likely start Game 2…

The only action in the FCBL last night was in Worcester, but that game between the Bravehearts and New Britain was suspended by rain with Worcester up 3-2. A Westfield-Pittsfield twinbill and Norwich at Brockton were postponed…

Fans who purchased tickets for last night’s game can use them as flex tickets for any remaining home game this season, the Knights said.