Until the last word, it looks like a typical Ivy League road trip for Princeton baseball this weekend: after a doubleheader at Harvard on Saturday, the Tigers will head to Ithaca, N.Y. to take on — Dartmouth?
Poor field conditions in Hanover, N.H., have forced Sunday's doubleheader with the Big Green to be moved to Cornell's field while the Big Red are away against the Crimson.
Princeton (10-15 overall, 3-1 Ivy League) comes in with the best league record of the three teams, and is second place in the Ivy League's Lou Gehrig Division standings behind 6-2 Penn, the team it edged out for the division championship a season ago.
Despite the good record, however, the Tigers are still having issues at the plate. Their .242 team batting average is the second-worst mark in the Ivies, in front of only Cornell. Senior catcher Jon Miller leads the squad with a .351 average, a .440 on-base percentage and 18 runs batted in in 77 at-bats, and sophomore outfielder B.J. Szymanski is close behind with a .344 average in a team-high 93 at-bats.
Junior catcher Tim Lahey has been the main source of power for Princeton this season, belting out six home runs with a .591 slugging percentage.
In general, the Tigers have suffered through offensive inferiority this season, trailing their opponents in mostly every major offensive category.
Yet Princeton is 3-1 in conference play and has scored 34 runs in those four games, 31 of them in the three wins. Things are starting to turn around.
Pitching appears to be in the Tigers' favor this weekend. Princeton's 5.98 earned run average, though not spectacular, is lower than each of its opponents' marks.
Junior Thomas Pauly is the team's top pitcher and a top college prospect as well. Pauly, a late-game reliever, is 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA and 24 strikeouts in 18 innings pitched.
Sophomore Ross Ohlendorf (3.21 ERA) and senior David Boehle (3.24) are the top two regular starters in the rotation.
The Tigers will need to work on closing out their games. In the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, Princeton has been outscored badly.
The Crimson (7-12, 2-2), to whom Princeton lost in the Ivy League Championship Series last year, comes in on the heels of a 3-1 loss to Columbia and is hoping to build a winning record with a four-game homestand this weekend.
On paper, Harvard has the strongest offensive team of the three. Infielder Trey Hendricks is one of the top hitters in the Ivy League, compiling a .405 average, .649 slugging percentage, 30 hits, 20 RBI and four home runs in 74 at-bats.
Five other Crimson players are hitting above .300 — three others above .345 — for a team with a solid .294 overall average, but that has translated to just 5.2 runs per game.
Hendricks is also the top pitcher for a staff with a 6.08 team ERA. Hendricks has just a 2.79 ERA in four starts. Four other regular pitchers have ERAs under 4.00.
Harvard is also the top fielding team of the three, with a .966 fielding percentage.
The Big Green (6-11, 0-4) should be the easier of the two opponents for Princeton this weekend, especially now that it has lost home-field advantage due to the weekend storms. The team did, however, win its only neutral-site game this season.
Dartmouth carries a .271 batting average and 5.9 runs per game average into the weekend, but has no conference wins to show for its respectable totals and is currently in the midst of a six-game losing streak.
Outfielder Scott Shirrell leads the team with a .356 batting average, .589 slugging percentage, 26 hits and 19 RBI in 73 at-bats. Three other Big Green hitters are above .300 on the year.
Like Princeton, Dartmouth has been bested in most every offensive category by its opponents this season.
The Big Green also have a high 7.51 team ERA, led by Joshua Faiola's 4.22 mark.
The Tigers need to capitalize on Dartmouth's tendency to start slowly. The Big Green has been outscored 64-42 in the first four innings of their games.
Three or more wins this weekend is a realistic goal for a Tiger team still testing the waters in the Ivy League, and a 6-2 or 7-1 start would put this team in the driver's seat to another division title.
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