Pitchers Pull Double Duty

After using seven pitchers in Saturday’s doubleheader, Harvard coach Joe Walsh didn’t have many pitchers left for yesterday.

So he just threw the same ones.

Four different Harvard hurlers—most notably senior Trey Hendricks, who pitched a complete game shutout in Game 3—pitched both Saturday and yesterday for the Crimson.

“We battled,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said. “We had a lot of guys that went back-to-back days for us. Even though they were out there yesterday, they wanted the ball today.”

Hendricks threw 60 pitches in two innings of relief in Game 2 on Saturday, and took the loss after allowing six earned runs in the ninth. After taking on almost a full workload, however, the right-hander rebounded to allow only six hits in seven innings of a 5-0 Harvard win to improve his record to 9-2.

The Game 4 starter, sophomore Frank Herrmann, was also pulling double duty.

After throwing 44 pitches in 2 1/3 innings of relief in Saturday’s 20-9 Game 1 win, Herrmann went the first 4 1/3 innings of Game 4, allowing only two earned runs on four hits, despite struggling at times with his control.

The other two Crimson hurlers to pitch both days shouldered slightly smaller work loads. Senior Jason Brown tossed 1 1/3 innings of relief in Game 1 before pitching 2 2/3 innings in Game 4. Sophomore Javier Castellanos pitched 2 2/3 innings over both days.

DÉJÀ VU

It was the second straight year that the Crimson needed to sweep Dartmouth on Sunday to keep its season alive.

Last year, Harvard entered its final weekend of league play one game up on the Big Green, but dropped a pair of games at Red Rolfe Field on May 3 to fall a game behind.

But the Crimson swept the final day to win the division by a game and advance to the Ivy League Championship Series.

This season, due largely to a disappointing 1-3 weekend at Yale, the Crimson entered the weekend behind and couldn’t overcome the deficit.

“It’s tough to think about just these games right now,” said junior catcher Schuyler Mann. “You think, ‘If we had picked up one game here, one game there, maybe it wouldn’t come down to this.’ We just had so many close games, a couple games that we feel like we should have won.”

WHAT A HOMER

Despite having only a 2-2 split to show for it, the Crimson posted its most impressive offensive performance of the Ivy season.

In the four games, Harvard averaged more than nine runs and 10 hits per contest, while also smashing 11 home runs.

Sophomore Zak Farkes and Mann led the way with four each, while Hendricks added two and sophomore Lance Salsgiver hit one. In the midst of it all, several Crimson sluggers crept up the record books.

Farkes claimed sole possession of the Harvard single-season home run record with his first dinger of the series, which gave him 11 for the season. His final homer of the weekend gave him 22 for his career, also a new Harvard record.

Mann’s four homers gave him 10 on the season, tied for the second-most in a single season, behind Farkes. Hendricks’ pair gave him 20 for his career, putting him in third place all-time in the career books.

—Staff writer Lande A. Spottswood can be reached at spottsw@fas.harvard.edu.