Eric “Easy E” Erickson, the laid-back left-hander with a lazy, lethal changeup as mellow as its master, has a new nickname — even if in jest. Whether it sticks could be evident by the time he leaves the mound Friday in Miami’s 2012 baseball season opener at home against Rutgers.

“Grandpa,” as some Hurricanes players have jokingly referred to Erickson, will make his first start in nearly two years on the night of his 24th birthday.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” said Erickson, the Canes’ former All-American who earned his bachelor’s degree in science and education in December 2010 and is working on a master’s in liberal arts — those achievements a rarity for top college baseball players who normally leave school after three years. “I’ve been given a second life.”

After two reconstructive surgeries to his left elbow in a 20-month span, and last year out of baseball and college altogether while he rehabilitated and coached middle school students in Tallahassee, Erickson has been granted a rare sixth year by the NCAA.

Completing the UM weekend rotation: junior Eric Whaley (4-4, 2.31 in 2011) at 7 p.m. Saturday; and sophomore Bryan Radziewski (7-1, 2.88) at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Junior Steven Ewing (8-2, 2.66) is the No. 4 starter for midweek games.

All four pitchers are veteran starters, giving UM (38-23 in 2011) — ranked as high as 13th in the preseason USA Today/ESPN Top 25 coaches’ poll — what is considered one of the strongest starting rotations in the nation.

“This could be as good as any rotation since I’ve been here,” said coach Jim Morris, who begins his 19th year at Miami. “We got a really big break getting Erickson back, a guy who was our No. 1 starter on Friday nights for two years. He’s healthy and throwing really well. The wait was definitely worth it.”

Erickson, 6-0 and 205 pounds from “a serious weight-training” regimen, has not allowed an earned run this preseason. He was 10-4 with a 2.50 ERA in 2007 as a freshman, 9-1 with a 4.15 ERA as a sophomore and 4-1 with a 2.52 ERA in 2010 as a redshirt junior who played most of the season in agony after his return from November 2008 surgery.

“From the very first inning I was in pain,” he said of the ’10 season. “I was winning games and throwing strikes, but they didn’t know how bad it was.

“I tried to fight through it, but every time I pitched it felt like someone was hitting me with a hammer.”

So, on July 1, 2010, renowned arthroscopic surgeon Dr. James Andrews performed Erickson’s second reconstructive surgery in Pensacola. Erickson said the first time, doctors in Miami took a tendon from his left hamstring “and basically put a groove in the bone of the elbow area and laid the ligament inside of it, putting sutures on top. The bone was supposed to grow over the tendon and hold everything together, but that didn’t happen.

“The graft didn’t take.”

He said Andrews’ procedure was more traditional. “He took a tendon from my right hamstring, drilled holes in the bones attached to my elbow and threaded the holes in a figure-8.

“When I woke up, Dr. Andrews told me, ‘You won’t have any more problems.’ And I’ve been better ever since. My elbow feels perfect. My work ethic has doubled, tripled, quadrupled. … I’m keeping my weight back and using my legs more, as opposed to slinging the ball and throwing with too much arm.”

Erickson’s pitching repertoire — fastball, curveball and changeup (it mimics his 85- to 87-mph fastball until it finally drops like a dead weight) — remains the same, “only better,” UM pitching coach J.D. Arteaga said.

Erickson firmly believes he can make it to the majors, with one last season to prove it. He was drafted in the 43rd round by the New York Yankees out of Sarasota High, where he threw three no-hitters and was the state’s 2006 Florida Dairy Farmers Class 6A State Player of the Year, also known as Mr. Florida Baseball.

He is the only current UM pitcher to have won a game in the College World Series, against Florida State in 2008, the last time four-time national champion UM played in Omaha, Neb.

“I keep telling everyone how awesome it is,” he said. “They’re curious.”

Even if the old man leads UM back, Radziewski, last year’s opening-day starter as a true freshman, will not be calling Erickson “Grandpa.”

“After everything he has been through, it means so much to us that he’s back,” Radziewski said. “To me, he’s still ‘Easy E,’ because he makes everything look so easy.”