Power Shortage Dooms Baseball

Harvard Coach Joe Walsh knows that the Crimson’s brand of baseball doesn’t work all that well when the team falls behind early.

So when Boston College jumped out to a 2-0 lead after its first two at-bats yesterday, it was not a good sign for Harvard’s struggling offense.

BC clubbed four homers—including a pair of two-run blasts—and Eagles freshman Joseph Martinez became the latest rookie pitcher to confound the Crimson lineup as BC (21-13, 10-4 Big East) rolled to a 12-3 win at O’Donnell Field.

The loss was the sixth for Harvard (8-18, 5-3 Ivy) in its last seven games.

“I’m really disappointed in our performance in weekday games, both this week and last week, against the local teams,” Walsh said. “It’s hard to find some positives.”

After replacing BC starter Paul Knapic in the fourth, Martinez shut the Crimson out for five innings.. He gave up just three hits and one walk to Harvard’s hitters, who were held scoreless for six innings by Northeastern freshman Matt Piryk in the Beanpot on Tuesday.

Harvard is batting just .243 as a team this season.

“We seem to get behind early and it takes away the chance to hit-and-run, steal bases and do all the little things we’re capable of doing well,” Walsh said. “When [BC] comes out and—boom—hits two two-run homers in the first three innings, we’ve got to play station-to-station. And when the team’s not hitting well, it’s tough to play that way.”

Harvard freshman Rob Wheeler fell behind in the count too many times in his first career start and the Eagles made him pay. After walking shortstop Ryan Morgan to start the game, Wheeler gave up a two-run homer to the Eagles’ No. 2 hitter, centerfielder Drew Locke.

Wheeler (0-1) gave up another run on two hits in the second inning before surrendering BC’s second two-run bomb of the game in the third. That homer, off the bat of leftfielder Brian Durkin, put the Eagles ahead 5-1.

“They hit a lot of fastballs off us,” Walsh said. “Wheeler got into a lot of fastball counts, 2-0 and 3-1.”

That forced Wheeler to challenge the Eagle hitters, something Harvard didn’t want to do. BC entered yesterday’s game with 32 homers on the season. Harvard has five.

“BC is a really good fastball-hitting team, so we knew that we’d need to keep them off-balance to be successful,” said sophomore pitcher Jason Brown, who relieved Wheeler to start the fourth. “We were looking to mix in some curveballs and changeups.”

Brown got a taste of BC’s power right away yesterday, as Eagles second baseman Jeff DiScipio led off the fourth with a solo homer. The shot negated the run Harvard had gotten back on a Mark Mager RBI single in the third.

“It was just tough luck. I was ahead in the count and made a good pitch on the outside part of the plate and he got it. I didn’t think it was going to leave,” Brown said.

Brown retired six of the next seven hitters he faced after DiScipio’s homer. The one man he failed to retire—Eagle catcher Jeff Mackor—hit BC’s fourth homer of the day with one out in the fifth.

The blast put the Eagles ahead 7-2. BC padded that lead in the seventh, when they strung together five hits off Brown and Harvard junior Brendan Reed.

After scoring in each of the first seven innings, BC’s bats were finally quieted by weekend starters Ben Crockett and Madhu Saty. They pitched the eighth and ninth, respectively.

“[In retrospect] I’m thinking I should have thrown [Crockett and Saty] in the first and second to get us off to a good start,” Walsh said.

Usually the strength of the team, Harvard’s pitchers have given up 63 runs in the team’s last six games.

“We’re not getting our breaking balls over [the plate]—we’re in the dirt with them,” Walsh said. “Guys are sitting on fastballs, and unless you’ve got a real heater, they know it’s coming.”

Harvard managed its third and final run in the bottom of the ninth when A.J. Solomine hit a pinch-hit double, moved to third on an Ian Wallace single and scored on a double play.

Martinez retired eight Harvard batters in a row at one point en route to his first collegiate victory. He left the game after the eighth in favor of Morgan, who moved in from shortstop.

Martinez survived a slightly scary moment in his last inning of work. With two on and one out, Harvard sophomore first baseman Trey Hendricks lined a shot back up the middle that hit Martinez on his left arm. The Eagles pitcher picked up the ball in time to get Hendricks at first and—after a visit from the team’s trainer—got freshman catcher Schuyler Mann to pop out to end the inning.

Hendricks hit the ball hard all day but had just one single on the afternoon. He scored Harvard’s first run.

Mager and Wallace—who started at second base for the second straight game in place of injured senior Faiz Shakir—were Harvard’s two other bright spots. They each went 2-for-4.

The Crimson is idle until the weekend, when the team will travel to Yale for a crucial four-game series. Despite the Crimson’s 1-3 showing against Penn and Columbia last weekend, Harvard remains tied atop the Red Rolfe Division standings with Brown with a 5-3 Ivy record.

“I have a lot of confidence about this weekend,” Brown said. “Yale’s pitching has been decent this year, but I think our hitting is going to come around.”