Harvard Aims To Improve On Ivy Record

For the players of the Harvard baseball team (1-17), returning to the friendly confines of O’Donnell field following three consecutive one-run losses for a home opener might be the perfect change of scenery for a team that is still searching for its identity.

As the Crimson prepares for this weekend’s home-opening pair of double headers against Columbia and Penn following two one-run losses to Princeton last weekend and a 4-3 defeat at the hands of Holy Cross, the sense around the clubhouse is that such a talented team cannot let frustration set in.

Despite its record, succeeding in Ivy League is how the team defines success, and following its losses to Princeton last weekend, Harvard is aiming to emerge from this weekend with at least a .500 Ivy record, leaving plenty of games ahead to climb to the top of the standings.

“This weekend is a big one for us, because we did not start off the way we wanted to the Ivy League,” senior captain Matt Vance said. “If we can take four, we’re still in it, but we’re hoping to take three at least for this weekend.”

The Crimson must first face a surging Columbia (7-16) squad, which boasts a .276 team batting average after sweeping Brown in a doubleheader last weekend and posting a 1-1 record against Yale.

The Quakers (9-9-1) bring a 1-2 Ivy record to Cambridge and feature 10 hitters batting above .300.

“The only thing we can do and, I know it sounds like a cliché, but we’re taking it one game at a time,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said. “We’re looking to define ourselves and playing good baseball.”

Achieving that better play depends on how smoothly the team can re-integrate its disabled veterans, like senior Tom Stack-Babich, back into the line-up. The outfielder batted .500 through the first eight games this season before an injury kept his bat out of the line-up for the next seven games. Stack-Babich returned to the plate Wednesday night, and the players are hopeful that the injury will not have cooled his remarkable hitting streak.

“This weekend, we’re going to need good games out of myself and for Tom to get back to hitting the way he did before his injury,” Vance said. “He just needs to see a few more pitches, and he’ll be ready.”

Harvard is also counting on more consistent domination from senior pitcher Shawn Haviland—another strong performer despite the losing streak—who will take the mound to open the doubleheader against Columbia on Saturday. Opening with the right-hander on Saturday maximizes the number of pitches Haviland can throw by including the possibility of a mid-week start.

Sophomore Dan Zailskas will follow in the second game following a spring in which he is beginning to distinguish himself as one of the team’s aces following an impressive start on the West Coast. Though his ERA remains high at 7.98 through 14.2 innings pitched, the right-hander’s numbers conceal much of his potential in the eyes of Walsh.

“Danny pitched a heck of a game against San Diego State. It was probably the best pitched game we’ve had this year. He added a nice change-up this year that really makes a difference for him,” Walsh said.

For a team that has been in so many one-run games recently, the pitching is less the concern than the hitting, and though finding success at the plate with runners-on-base often come down to timing and luck, the Crimson knows that winning simply will not come unless its hitters deliver in these clutch situations.

For the team to embark upon its first winning streak of the season, a successful turn-around may rely more on small-ball fundamentals than the return of big bats to the lineup.

“We need the bottom of the lineup to step up and play well when we need to bunt guys over or get the clutch hit. It’s going to need to be a team effort,” Vance said.

As Wednesday night’s game against the Crusaders showed, relying on power to win is not a viable formula for success, as Vance’s three RBI, two home-run performance still was not enough.

“We’re focused on learning from our mistakes and playing well in terms of small-ball, hitting, bunting, running, and manufacturing runs without relying on the long ball,” Vance said.

For a team that needs to use this weekend to put itself in the strongest possible position in the Ivy league, the Crimson hopes to make it one win at a time, several times in a row.

—Staff writer Robert T. Hamlin can be reached rhamlin@fas.harvard.edu.