LEWISTON — Mother Nature tried to tantalize the Lewiston Blue Devils into going outdoors Monday for the first day of pitchers and catchers with blue skies and 71 degree temperatures. But coach Todd Cifelli wasn’t even close to tempted.

“Pitcher and catchers week, I almost like to have them in the gym,” Cifelli said. “I guess if it’s 80 degrees we’ll talk about going out. It’s nice to be in the friendly confines of the gym even though it’s 75 degrees.”

Cifelli has two goals during the opening week of practice — give the pitchers a head start on conditioning and keep everybody healthy. The best way to do that is to keep everybody inside for the first few days, even if it feels more like the end of the season than the beginning.

“We’ve got to do those two things. It’s a long season ahead, but at the same time, it’s very short, eight weeks,” he said. “If a player is lost for four weeks, that’s half the year.”

Baseball and softball teams across the state opened practice for pitchers and catchers on Monday, with rosters limited to eight pitchers and two catchers in baseball (softball is allowed any combination of pitchers and catchers not to exceed 10). Full squads report next Monday.

For the first time in 51 years, the Blue Devils start their season as defending regional champions, having lost to Cheverus in the Class A championship.

Lewiston brings back lefty ace Corbin Hyde but lost two veteran starters,  Joe Sullivan and Jeff Keene, to graduation.

The biggest loss may be the other end of the battery. Mekae Hyde, their starting catcher the last four years and 2011 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference South player of the year, is now at Bates.

“It’s definitely going to be weird not throwing to my brother this year, but I’m not really looking at it any different,” Corbin Hyde said. “We lost some big guys, but I think we’ve got more pitching this year. I think we go deeper.”

The Devils will still be among the favorites in Eastern A because those stepping in to fill the void on the mound are battle tested. Luke Cote, Chris Madden, Shawn Ricker and Matt Bowen all pitched last summer for Cifelli’s state champion American Legion team.

With all of that depth comes a lot of competition for the two or three coveted slots behind Hyde in the starting rotation. Over the next month, it will unfold under the watchful eyes of  Cifelli and pitching coach Dave Jordan. But overthrowing this week to impress the coaches isn’t in anyone’s best interest.

“If I try to do too much in the beginning, I’ll get a little bit of sore arm. So I’ll try to work my way into it,” Bowen said.

 “This week we have to strengthen our arms, get ready for April 4th, our first preseason game (at York), and do some conditioning” Cote said. 

The Blue Devils are in the unfamiliar position of being the team everyone is targeting this year. They expect to see every team’s No. 1 pitcher, starting on April 18 when they open the season at home against Cony. Having enough arms to meet that challenge is one thing. Having them prepared to meet it is what the first week is all about.

“We have a good core group of seniors and we’ve got some underclassmen that are going to have to step up,” Madden said. “As far as expectations go, we came up a little bit short last year. The goal is obviously to go all the way.”

“We’re excited about some of the young arms that are here,” Cifelli said. “We think pitching is the strength of our team.  The work starts today.”