Harvard Comes Out Victorious in Slugfest

As if Harvard baseball’s last game were meant to be a comprehensive review of the team’s season, yesterday’s matchup against Northeastern at O’Donnell Field featured the best and worst that the Crimson’s 2009 campaign had to offer.

There were the all too familiar pitching and defensive breakdowns that prevented Harvard from positioning itself among the Ivy League’s elite and contending for the Rolfe Division title this season.

But there were also the offensive outbursts and late-inning rallies that pulled the Crimson out of the Rolfe basement and marked it as a team that could never be counted out of a game, no matter how daunting of a deficit it faced.

Yesterday, Harvard’s redeeming qualities were just enough to compensate for its most noticeable flaws and the Crimson (13-28, 10-10 Ivy) overcame an early 7-0 deficit to eventually topple the Huskies (22-16, 8-7 CAA) by a score of 16-13.

“The game was pretty typical of our season,” Harvard captain Harry Douglas said. “It turned into a slugfest. But that’s the way we’ve been all year, coming back from behind.”

The Crimson had been doomed by the “big inning” throughout the season, and when Northeastern put seven runs on the board in the first frame off senior starting pitcher Adam Cole, it appeared Harvard’s day was done just as it had started.

But down, 9-4, in the bottom of the seventh, the Crimson revealed that it had been saving up a big inning of its own all along. The squad exploded for 10 runs in the frame, coming through with timely hits and taking advantage of the Huskies’ miscues.

The Harvard eruption began with back-to-back doubles off the bats of freshman Marcus Way and senior Matt Rogers. After senior Taylor Meehan walked, Douglas moved the runners over to second and third with a groundball and senior Tom Stack-Babich drove Rogers home with a single to center field. Northeastern pitcher Tyler Thornton hit rookie J.T. Tomes to load the bases and then walked senior catcher Jared Wortzman to make the score 9-7. Stack-Babich reached home on a wild pitch, bringing up sophomore Dillon O’Neill with one out and a pair of runners on base.

O’Neill smoked a two-run triple to give Harvard the lead and the comeback was completed. The Crimson tacked another four runs in the frame to go up, 14-9.

“We haven’t had one of those [types of innings] in a long time,” Harvard coach Joe Walsh said.

“We’ll have to get one of those scoreboards that’s got parentheses on it,” he quipped. “Usually that’s only for the other team.”

The Crimson almost squandered its seventh-inning rally in the top of the eighth, when senior reliever Ryan Watson’s initially solid pitching was negated by a pair of errors. The lefty then began to struggle with his control, allowing the Huskies to pull within two. Sophomore Dan Berardo replaced Watson, allowing another run to score on a wild pitch before buckling down to get the final out of the inning with Harvard still up, 14-13.

The Crimson added two insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth, although they proved unnecessary. Stack-Babich, who assumed the closer’s role late in the season in addition to his normal duties in right field, took the mound for one last time. The senior ended his Harvard career in style, whiffing all three Northeastern batters he faced to nail down the save and give his team the victory.

“Stack came in and he was dealing in the ninth,” Walsh said. “He’s relaxed whether it’s with a one-run lead or a three-run lead. He really has been a present surprise for us with that arm, closing out some ballgames.”

The Crimson may not have been in a position to win at all had it not been for a gutsy relief outing by sophomore pitcher Anthony Nutter. Coming in to stop the bleeding in the top of the first with his team down by seven, Nutter did what was required of him and more. The righty threw 6 1/3 stellar innings of four-hit ball, giving up just two runs on a homer by the Huskies’ Ryan Kemp in the top of the third and keeping Harvard within reach.

“It brought back memories of last year when he was keeping guys off base,” Walsh said. “He was mixing—his fastball was tough because he was getting breaking balls over.”

But while the sophomore Nutter kept the Crimson alive, the day belonged to the team’s seniors, who took the field in Harvard uniforms for the last time.

Walsh got all eight of his seniors into the game, filling the top six slots of his starting lineup with fourth-years and sending both Cole and Watson to the mound.

Douglas, Meehan, Rogers and Stack-Babich—arguably the team’s four best hitters this season—all drove in runs in their final appearances.

Jon Roberts, who served as an outfielder and pinch hitter for the Crimson during the year, made the most of his lone at-bat, going yard in the bottom of the fourth with a shot over the left-field wall.

And then there was Wortzman. Game action has been scarce for the Stoughton, Mass. native, a walk-on who has spent his time on the team catching bullpen sessions and warming up pitchers between innings.

But Wortzman has taken advantage of his rare ventures out onto the field, and yesterday was no different. He went two-for-three at the plate with an RBI and a run scored and threw out a runner trying to steal second base in the top of the seventh.

“He’s been one of those guys behind the scenes,” Walsh said of Wortzman. “It’s nice to know that if your catchers get hurt you have a guy who can step in there and play. What I’d like to see—and I know he’s got a big career in medicine planned—I think he’d make a terrific coach.”

For all the seniors, it was the end of a tough season, but also of a career, and the Crimson’s elder statesmen took time to reflect after the game.

“We got off to a slow start, but we battled,” Stack-Babich said. “It’s been a great four years. I want to thank Coach Walsh for giving me the chance to play here.”

“It’s been fantastic,” Douglas added. “I’m definitely going to miss it.”

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