Baseball Succombs to Errors, URI

The Harvard baseball team’s home opener at O’Donnell Field yesterday turned out to be a comedy of errors. Harvard Coach Joe Walsh wasn’t laughing.

The Crimson (6-14, 2-2 Ivy) dropped its first home game to the University of Rhode Island (URI), 7-2, yesterday at windswept O’Donnell Field. The Rams (15-10) took an early 1-0 lead in the first inning without getting a hit and never looked back.

After the fifth inning, a visibly frustrated Walsh replaced virtually all of a lineup that had already committed three errors and several baserunning gaffes.

Down 5-0 at the time, Walsh’s mass benching seemed to ignite his squad. After sophomore reliever Barry Wahlberg pitched a scoreless top of the sixth, freshman outfielder Johann Schneider reached first on a single to left field. Junior outfielder Nick Carter brought him home with a two-run dinger over the 370-foot mark in left to bring the Crimson within three.

Harvard looked primed to come all the way back before the inning was through. With two outs, sophomore right fielder Nick Seminara found himself behind in the count, 0-2, but managed to earn a walk off freshman starter Matt Preston. A single by freshman infielder Mickey Kropf and a walk to senior catcher John O’Donnell loaded the bases.

But the Rams pulled Preston in favor of another freshman, Keith Ross, who was more than ready to stop the bleeding. Ross struck out senior infielder John Farmer looking to end the inning. The Crimson would not threaten again.

The fifth-inning rally almost forgave a start in which very few things went right for the Crimson. Junior starter Justin Nyweide (0-3) struggled with his control early on, walking four batters in his five innings of work, including two on four pitches. However, he did manage to escape several jams by employing a superb pickoff move. Nyweide caught men napping on second base in the second and fifth innings.

Unfortunately for Harvard, Nyweide’s teammates were much less stellar in the field. With sophomore defensive catcher Brian Lentz absent from the lineup, Rhode Island was very aggressive on the basepaths. The Rams effectively used the hit-and-run, and six Harvard errors only helped them.

Junior second baseman Faiz Shakir began the parade of miscues when his hurried throw to first pulled freshman first baseman Marc Hordon off the bag, costing Harvard an easy out.

In the third, consecutive errors charged to junior shortstop Mark Mager gave the Rams first and third with two outs. When URI third baseman Daniel Batz attempted to steal, O’Donnell’s throw sailed past second base and into the outfield to plate another Ram. The three-error inning was by far the worst fielding frame for Harvard this year.

When the Crimson wasn’t throwing the game away in the field, it was being flustered at the plate by a rookie hurler. Preston made the first start of his collegiate career yesterday, and did not allow a Crimson run in his first five innings of work.

“To win a baseball game, you need to pitch, hit and field,” O’Donnell said. “We didn’t do two of those things.”

They also didn’t run the bases especially well. Hordon got the Crimson’s first hit on a single to shallow right field. Hordon rounded first base and glanced toward the outfield to see if he could turn the hit into a double. When he saw that it would be too risky, he scampered back to first.

He didn’t scamper quickly enough. Center fielder John Scullin gunned him down at first.

The mistakes continued. Crimson outfielders misjudged two wind-aided fly balls that turned into extra base hits. Junior right fielder Javy Lopez missed the cutoff man in the fourth inning on one of these, turning Rhode Island shortstop Mike LaBarbera’s double into an easy triple.

By the end of that inning, Walsh had enough. The mass substitution gave seldom-used players like Seminara and Farmer some playing time, but was undoubtedly meant as a message to some of his players.

“We needed a wake-up call and we had nothing to lose,” O’Donnell said. “The other thing to remember is that everybody on the team is capable, and could help bring us back.”

Ross, the URI reliever, shut the replacements down after ending Harvard’s fifth-inning rally. He pitched 3.1 innings of scoreless relief and struck out three to earn the save.

Carter was one of the few bright spots for the Crimson. The third baseman went 3-for-5 with a double, a home run and two RBI. He also sent a towering shot to left that the wind turned into an out at the wall. Carter was one of the few Crimson regulars who was not replaced in the fifth, shifting instead to second base.

Notes

Senior outfielder Joe Llanes made his long-anticipated return to O’Donnell field yesterday after offseason surgery for testicular cancer. Llanes was hit by a pitch in his first at-bat and went 0-for-1 before being lifted at the end of the fifth…Schneider’s single in the sixth inning was the first hit of his collegiate career…Sophomore Brendan Reed pitched two solid innings of scoreless relief in mop-up duty for Harvard. Reed has a 0.00 ERA in 12.2 innings so far this year.