B.C. Cools Off Crimson Bats

Against the one-two punch of two of Boston College’s (BC) aces, the Harvard baseball team could get little done offensively, as it fell 6-3 to the Eagles in an afternoon game yesterday at O’Donnell Field.

Junior Terry Doyle and senior Ted Ratliff shut down the Crimson (10-12, 5-3 Ivy) with excellent breaking balls and solid fastballs, allowing just six hits on the day—all to the top four hitters in the Harvard lineup.

“I was really surprised to see Doyle and Ratliff with the weekend coming up,” Crimson coach Joe Walsh said. “I consider those guys [BC’s] two best. Two very good curveball guys and I wasn’t expecting to run into them on a Wednesday. Those are two the best breaking ball guys around here and maybe around the country.”

The Crimson sent out a quartet of hurlers against the Eagles (10-20-1, 4-11 ACC), with sophomores Adam Cole and Ryan Watson, senior Jason Brown, and junior Max Warren taking the hill.

Cole went the first three innings, allowing one run in the first. Watson took over for the fourth, when BC scored three two-out runs to pull away with a 4-0 lead.

The Crimson got three of those runs back in the bottom of that inning. Doyle had denied the team any base runners up to that point, but junior shortstop and leadoff hitter Jeff Stoeckel walked and captain second baseman Brendan Byrne followed with a double down the left-field line.

Junior center fielder Matt Vance was up next and hit Doyle’s first pitch beyond the trees in left field for a three-run shot, his second in as many days, making it 4-3.

Junior third baseman Steffan Wilson followed with a double to left, but Doyle got the next three hitters out.

Ratliff entered the game in the next inning, and Harvard would not get another hit until the eighth.

The senior ended with ten strikeouts in five inning of work, continuing his past success against the Crimson.

“Ratliff seems to have our number,” Byrne said. “That is the third time he has thrown against us in two years and every time he has thrown very well.”

Brown pitched the fifth and sixth innings, allowing two unearned runs in the sixth when junior right fielder Tom Stack-Babich misplayed a fly ball

Then, with runners on first and third and two outs, Brown threw away his pickoff attempt at first.

The Eagles’ Mike Augustine then doubled into the gap in left-center to bring home the sixth BC run.

Warren pitched the last three innings for Harvard and shut down the Eagles, allowing just a hit and a walk in that span with three strikeouts.

“Warren pitched extremely well,” Walsh said. “Three good innings, he had great composure out there, he was mixing pitches well, had a couple of strikeouts. That’s Max, he gives you a great effort every time he goes out there.”

Warren’s strong performance kept the Crimson close, but the team could do little on offense against Ratliff, who set the offense down 11 batters he faced.

Finally, with two outs in the eighth, Harvard got something going. Stoeckel singled off the second baseman’s glove. Byrne then fought over several two strike pitches before grounding a single up the middle.

That brought up Vance representing the tying run, but the center fielder could only pop to second on a full count.

In the ninth, Wilson led off with a single to right, but Ratliff struck out the next three hitters to end the Crimson’s four-game winning streak.

—Staff writer Ted Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.