Baseball: Solid pitching will be key to weekend success

The Tigers will play a doubleheader against Yale (4-7, 0-0) on Saturday at Clarke Field before squaring off against Brown (3-10, 0-0) the following day.

“We know everything that we do is to gear up towards the Ivy League,” head coach Scott Bradley said. “It’s fun; it’s like playoff baseball every weekend.”

Princeton is spearheaded by the one-two punch of righthanders senior Brad Gemberling and junior David Hale atop its starting rotation. Hale has yet to allow an earned run this season and was recently named Ivy League pitcher of the week.

“Hale and Gemberling will throw on Saturday,” Bradley said. “[Junior pitcher] Langford Stuber and [sophomore pitcher] David Palms will throw on Sunday. David Palms will step into the starting roll. He had a great outing against Navy last weekend.”

One worry for the Tigers is that they will be without the services of sophomore pitcher Dan Barnes, who has recently been experiencing arm problems. Barnes was projected as a starter in Princeton’s rotation, and the team hopes that his absence will be short.

“Hopefully, this is going to be a short stretch [with Barnes out],” Bradley said. “He had an MRI [on Thursday]. Danny Barnes has a chance to be a really dominant pitcher in this league. He was going to really give us somebody who on Saturday could pitch short relief and then on Sunday, if we needed someone to come in, could finish the game.”

With Barnes out, Princeton will need its starters to pitch deep into games so it does not have to overextend its bullpen on Saturday.

“We feel like we can let our pitchers go up to 100 pitches. Hopefully, that’s going to get them deep into ball games,” Bradley said. “[Sophomore pitcher] Matt Grabowski has done a really good job for us out of the bullpen. We’re using him in a closer-type role. We used him in three of the four games against Navy to get him used to throwing in back-to-back games.”

So far, the Tigers have thrived at the plate by getting offensive production across their lineup. Sophomore infielder Greg Van Horn has been the most consistent performer to date. Batting third in the order, Van Horn currently leads the team with a .472 batting average and is second with 12 RBI. Sophomore outfielder Brian Berkowitz has also been a bright spot, leading the team with 14 RBI and two home runs.

“The good thing about our lineup is that we’ve had a lot of contributions from a lot of different spots in our lineups,” Bradley said. “Brian Berkowitz has had a number of really good games and big hits for us.”

Bradley said he hopes that junior catcher Jack Murphy, the team’s cleanup hitter, will catch fire after a slower-than-expected start to the season. Last year, Murphy led the team in home runs and RBI. In the team’s non-conference games this year, Murphy has batted .271 with only one home run and six RBI.

“Murph has to get used to teams pitching around him,” Bradley said. “When you look at our lineup, teams are thinking that he’s the guy that they are not going to let beat them.”

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The Tiger lineup looks to benefit from finally being able to practice outdoors this week. Additional batting practice this week should help the Tigers fine-tune their performance at the plate.

“For a hitter, sometimes the more you play, the better you are,” Bradley said. “You really get used to fine-tuning pitchers and seeing pitches. They started to swing the bats a little bit better towards the end of the trip. For the first time, we were able to take batting practice outside.”

The common denominator in many of Princeton’s losses so far this season has been the team’s inconsistent play in the field. The Tigers have made 32 errors on the year — twice the amount of their opponents.

“We have not played great defense up to this point. A lot of that has to do with we haven’t had any consistent playing time,” Bradley said. “You need to be out on a field to practice. Defense is a big part of baseball, and we haven’t played great defense yet. That needs to stop if we’re going to have success in our league games.”

The Tigers will look to check all these problems at the door as they kick-start the drive to win an Ivy League title. With evenly matched teams and only 20 games, every matchup in the conference should be a dog fight.

“We know that we’re not going to get an at-large big coming out of the league. What makes it fun is that nobody is concerned about their own stats,” Bradley said. “Personal stuff doesn’t really matter: We’ve got to win a game. Whether you win a game 1-0 or 10-1, whatever it takes to win is the way we approach each game.”