Rookie Hurler Pitches Gem Against Bulldogs

A word of warning to opposing hitters: don’t get Max Perlman fired up.

In the Harvard baseball team’s 5-1 victory in the first game of a doubleheader against Yale on Saturday, the freshman starter was cruising until the top of the sixth inning, having given up only two hits up to that point.

Then, with the Bulldogs’ second baseman Justin Ankney in the hole on an 0-2 count, Perlman uncharacteristically left a pitch hanging in the strike zone. Ankney jumped on the ball, slamming a hard line drive well over the right field fence.

After a mistake like that to the No. 2 hitter and with the meat of the lineup coming up, some rookies might lose their confidence and fall apart.

Not Max Perlman.

“It really fired me up,” he said. “It was a really bad pitch, and it motivated me to get through the rest of the game.”

Perlman came right back and got ahead in the count on this season’s most feared hitter in the Ancient Eight, Ryan Lavarnway, the winner of the last three Ivy League Player of the Week awards. With the count 0-2, Lavarnway’s eight home runs and 38 RBI meant nothing, as Perlman pulled the string and sat the powerful outfielder down with a wicked changeup.

“That showed me a lot, especially for a freshman,” Crimson coach Joe Walsh said. “He was keeping them off balance with the changeup all day.”

Yale’s No. 4 and No. 5 hitters suffered the same fate as Lavarnway.

Using his fastball and breaking ball to get get ahead in the count, and then going back to the changeup for the finish, Perlman sent first baseman Marc Sawyer back to the bench swinging and then caught third baseman Pedro Obregon staring to strike him out.

“It was big for the coaching staff seeing a kid like that all of a sudden become a bulldog like that, especially when he was facing the heart of their lineup, in the way that he just dissected all three of them,” Walsh said.

Perlman came back for the seventh frame and fanned two more Bulldog batters on his way to capping off a complete game, three-hit gem. His eight strikeouts were a career-high, and he also showed excellent control in not walking any hitters.

“[Perlman was] dropping the breaking ball, the fastball, and believing in everything,” Walsh said. “He was just pounding the zone and doing everything he had to do.”

The win comes a week after Perlman gave up four runs on 12 hits to Princeton in Harvard’s 6-4 loss to the Tigers last Saturday.

The 6’6 righty attributed an improved fastball and, surprisingly, the colder weather to his stronger showing against Yale.

“I really think I was getting the fastball in today well, which I didn’t do against Princeton and it helped me a lot,” Perlman said. “Actually [the temperature] felt great, compared to last weekend...when it was 15 degrees warmer.”

Perlman now leads the Crimson with three wins in just four starts, and the complete game was his second of the season.

He and fellow freshman Eric Eadington have formed an impressive rookie tandem for Harvard, helping to solidify a rotation that had some question marks before the season started.

Much of Perlman’s success has been due to his poise on the mound, a trait not always guaranteed in such a young pitcher.

According to Walsh, Perlman has developed his presence of mind by facing high-quality opposition in both high school and summer leagues.

“He’s in total control of himself, in control of his pitches,” Walsh said. “He’s been facing [Divsion I] hitters now for two summers, and he knows how to get guys out.”

With his combination of pitching talent and intangibles, Perlman promises to be an important component of the Crimson’s staff for this season and beyond.

—Staff writer Loren Amor can be reached at lamor@fas.harvard.edu.