After just five wins in 17 road games, baseball will be ready for a little home cooking. Princeton (5-12) hosts Vermont (5-3) at Clarke Field in doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday, the Tigers' first home games of the year.
The Catamounts visit New Jersey on the strength of a 7-6 home win over No. 30 Ohio State last Saturday. This weekend's games will be the first road games of the season for Vermont.
The Tigers' most recent defeat was a lopsided 15-0 loss in the final game of a four-game set with William & Mary over Spring Break, but Princeton has won four of its last seven games, including a 2-0 win at Monmouth last night.
In that win, played in West Long Branch, N.J., the Tigers scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning when junior catcher Tim Lahey connected on his fifth home run of the season and junior infielder Steve Young pushed across an unearned run on a sacrifice fly. The Tigers look to ride the momentum of that win in this weekend's contests.
The offensive numbers seem to favor Vermont for the four-game set.
The Catamounts have a team .286 batting average, led by freshman Jay Iannoni's .429 mark in 28 at-bats. The Tigers are a meager .231 behind the plate, led by sophomore and first-year player B.J. Szymanski's .345 average in 55 plate appearances.
Along with a lofty .703 slugging percentage, Lahey — the hero in last night's game — is hitting an impressive .615 for Princeton against left-handed pitching, which bodes well this weekend as two of Vermont's regular starters are southpaws.
Lahey, sophomore outfielder Adam Balkan, senior infielder Mike Chernoff, junior infielder Steve Young and freshman outfielder Andy Salini are all over .400 with runners in scoring positon.
Vermont has found other ways to get on base besides hitting. Forty-three runners have reached base either by a base on balls or being hit by a pitch.
Fortunately for the Tigers, all those extra men on base have not equated to much run production for the Catamounts, who are averaging just 4.4 runs per game. Princeton is averaging the same.
This means that the opportunities have been there for Vermont, which has left nearly nine men on base per game so far. The Tiger pitching staff will need to continue to exploit the inability of the Catamounts' to produce runs in order to have success this weekend.
Vermont again has the statistical advantage in pitching.
Princeton pitching has had a rough time this season, racking up a 7.45 earned run average. Senior Ryan Quillian (3.00 ERA), sophomore Ross Ohlendorf (3.21) and senior David Boehle (4.80) anchor the Tiger starting rotation and have had solid results.
Ohlendorf, who leads the team with 16 strikeouts, will be sidelined this weekend as he nurses a broken hand suffered during the Spring Break road trip.
Only three other hurlers have tossed more than 10 innings for Princeton. Junior Brian Biegen (5.11 ERA), freshman Eric Stiller (5.56) and senior Mark Siano (7.04) complete what has been head coach Scott Bradley's core unit this spring.
The Princeton staff has allowed a lofty .313 batting average to its opponents. But worse than that, between walks, hit batsmen and wild pitches, the Tigers are handing out over seven free bases per game.
Conversely, pitching has been Vermont's strong point this season. Of the eight pitchers used by the Catamounts, none has an ERA higher than 6.43, one run less than the Princeton team average.
Opponents are hitting just .139 off Jeff Dixon, who leads the Catamounts with a paper-thin 0.84 ERA in 10.2 innings pitched and has two of their five victories and one save.
Jamie Merchant (1.17 ERA, 17 strikeouts), Derek Miller (3.27, 7), and Brian Robinson (6.32, 6) have all started two games each for a staff that is holding its foes to a .214 average.
Defensively, the advantage again seems to go to Vermont. The Catamounts' .961 fielding percentage is 21 points higher than the Tigers' mark.
Vermont will want to be aggressive on the basepaths this weekend. Tiger catchers have caught just three out of 41 base stealers so far this season. Princeton could heed the same advice, as the Catamounts have caught just five of 14.
With their next ten games at Clarke Field, hopefully the Tigers can put what may be a misleading stat page behind them and even out their unbalanced record.
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