Notebook: 'Pen's Collapse is Penn's Gain

It all started innocently enough. As omens go, Penn shortstop Steve Glass’ bunt single that led off the top of the seventh inning on Saturday wasn’t all that menacing.

But when the very next hitter, Jim Mullen, homered to left, the Harvard baseball team’s 10-4 lead was cut by two. Then, on the very next pitch from Crimson reliever Kenon Ronz, Penn’s All-Ivy second baseman Nick Italiano jacked a shot over the right field fence.

Harvard changed pitchers after that, bringing in senior Mike Dryden. The switch didn’t help much—Penn first baseman Andrew McCreery greeted Dryden with another dinger.

All of a sudden, the Quakers had back-to-back-to-back home runs.

Five batters later, the game was tied. Two innings after that, it was over. Penn scored eight runs in the top of the ninth to put the game out of reach.

The Crimson bullpen had not a been cause for concern before this weekend, but after Saturday, it might be.

“As a coaching staff, we’re a little worried because there have been times when we had the pitching, but didn’t have the hitting. Then we get a little bit of hitting and the pitching goes south,” Harvard Coach Joe Walsh said.

The Crimson relievers weren’t helped by the gale-force winds that were blowing out to right field. But Walsh was not inclined to blame the elements for the late-game meltdown.

“We had a 10-4 lead going into the last inning—you win those games.” Walsh said. “Even though the wind was blowing out, every one of those balls—other than the one hit off Dryden—was crushed.”

Senior Mark Mager—who went 4-for-5 in the game—tipped his cap to the Penn hitters for not giving up on Saturday.

“They did a good job hitting in the clutch,” he said. “When you get six runs, that’s pretty clutch. It’s hard to fault our relievers for one inning.”

The bullpen bounced back against Columbia yesterday. Junior Matt Self tossed four innings of two-hit ball in relief of Madhu Saty in game one, while Trey Hendricks closed out the final 2.2 innings for Chaney Sheffield in the second game.

But even if the bullpen as a whole returns to form relatively quickly, Saturday’s debacle did little to help the cause of two former Harvard starters who were bidding to return to the rotation.

Ronz, who is coming off his second summer in the Cape Cod League, was a weekend starter during his first two seasons with the Crimson. But he began struggling at the tail end of last season and—counting his outing on Saturday, when he failed to retire a batter—he has just three appearances this year.

His innings have been limited by bicep tendinitis, an injury that Walsh says has slowed his fastball.

“He came in here as a weekend pitcher,” Walsh said. “He’s just going to have to earn it back.”

Righthander Barry Wahlberg began this year as a starter, getting the nod in the third game of Harvard’s opening series against Rice. But Wahlberg lasted just two innings in that game and hasn’t started since.

Wahlberg had been highly effective lately, throwing six shutout innings to pick up a relief win against Princeton last weekend.

On Saturday, however, he walked four and was taken deep twice in two innings. He fared little better in the second game against Columbia yesterday, yielding four runs without recording an out in the Lions’ 12-5 win. His ERA now stands at 9.00.

Quite the Catch

Earlier this year, there were plenty of questions surrounding Harvard’s catcher situation in the wake of Brian Lentz’ departure.

Not anymore.

The platoon of sophomore Mickey Kropf and freshman Schuyler Mann continue to work well. The pair split this weekend’s games behind the plate.

Both players also appeared in the lineup even when they weren’t catching—Mann as the designated hitter and Kropf at first base. While Kropf’s hot bat has been silenced over the past week (two hits in his last 18 at-bats), Mann provided a definite spark at the plate over the weekend. He went 2-for-4 with two RBI in the weekend opener and had two more hits—including a solo homer—in yesterday’s 10-6 win against the Lions.

More importantly, both Kropf and Mann appear to be settling into their roles defensively. Walsh says he has relied on them more and more to call the game behind the plate, something Lentz did all the time.

“I thought going into the season that I’d be calling 75 to 80 percent of the pitches,” Walsh said. “Now, I may not 75 or 80 pitches all year. It’s basically two or three pitches per game.”

Hale to the Chief

After being stuck below the Mendoza Line for most of the season, sophomore centerfielder Bryan Hale had four hits in yesterday’s doubleheader, including a go-ahead, three-run homer in the nightcap. He went 8-for-17 in the four games this weekend.

Hale also made an outstanding running catch on a deep fly ball that got caught in the wind in the second game against Penn. It was the kind of play that has earned Hale comparisons to former Harvard star centerfielder Brian Ralph ’98. Walsh called it one of the best-ever at O’Donnell Field...

Captain Ben Crockett lived up to his billing as staff workhorse against Penn on Saturday, throwing 125 pitches in his complete-game effort. His outing was all the more important considering that Harvard had cycled through six pitchers in the early game...

Hordon—who broke his left hand last weekend at Cornell after getting hit by a pitch—may be ready to return next weekend at Yale. With a .361 average in 61 at-bats, Hordon is Harvard’s leading hitter. He is also one of Harvard’s better starting pitchers, and would have started Game Two yesterday had he been healthy. Sheffield got the ball instead.