Baseball: For Princeton, the time is now

Having won just one of four contests to open their Ancient Eight season last weekend, the Tigers will try to stage a comeback against Dartmouth (6-9 overall, 4-0 Ivy) and Harvard (4-17, 2-2). The Tigers will play the Big Green in a Saturday doubleheader and will play another doubleheader against the Crimson on Sunday.

“We just need to swing the bat and score runs,” head coach Scott Bradley said. “We’ve had a couple of good days in practice. You’ve got to be able to hit in games.”

Neither series will be easy. Dartmouth has gotten off to a quick start, sweeping Penn and Columbia last weekend to start its Ivy League season with a perfect 4-0 record. Harvard played a bit less consistently, getting swept by Columbia last Saturday before sweeping Penn last Sunday. While the Crimson’s 4-17 overall record looks terrible on paper, Harvard has played many superior teams and has a dangerous offense.

In contrast, Princeton only managed one win last weekend, a 9-3 victory against Yale on Saturday. In the Tigers’ other three games last weekend, Princeton only scored five runs combined. The offensive struggles continued on Tuesday at Monmouth, when again Princeton managed only three runs.

The Orange and Black hope that the extra practice this week will help Princeton find its stride, as in the team’s spring break trip, when the Tigers took three of four games against William & Mary and Navy.

“Hitting is contagious,” Bradley said. “We need the big two-out hits that we were getting two weeks ago.”

Dartmouth, on the other hand, has scored at least six runs in each of its past seven games and is riding a five-game winning streak. The Big Green is led offensively by outfielder Nick Santomauro and infielder Johnathon Santopadre, who batted .688 and .467 respectively against Ivy League opposition last weekend. Santomauro had hits in a staggering 11 out of 16 at-bats, including three home runs and two doubles, while batting in six runs for a 1.375 slugging percentage, rightfully earning the Ivy League Player of the Week award last week.

Santopadre, while not matching Santomauro’s stellar performance, still had an extremely successful weekend in his own right, batting .467 with three doubles. Princeton will have to find a way to shut down the potent Dartmouth offense: The Big Green had a batting average of .356 against the hapless Quakers and Lions last weekend.

“Dartmouth has some experience, since they won their division last year,” Bradley said. “They have no great players, but lots of good players.”

The solution to facing Dartmouth will most likely be found in the Tiger starting pitching staff, which faltered last weekend but looks to get back on track Saturday. Princeton will probably start junior righthander David Hale, who struggled last Saturday, giving up six runs in seven innings, but who was dominant two weeks ago against Navy, when he pitched six innings and gave up no runs. In the second game, the likely starter will be senior righty Brad Gemberling, who pitched a complete-game victory against Yale last weekend, giving up three earned runs.

“Hale pitched well, aside from a couple of bad pitches,” Bradley said. “His stuff was very good. We expect our pitching to give us good outings on Saturday. We just need to score more runs.”

Dartmouth’s pitching staff is headed by ace Kyle Hendricks, who pitched a complete-game five-hitter shutout against Columbia last Sunday. But the rest of the staff cannot be discounted, as the team held a 3.82 ERA against its Ivy competition last weekend.

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On Sunday, the Tigers will likely bring up their starting rotation’s two southpaws, junior Langford Stuber and sophomore David Palms. Against Brown, Stuber pitched effectively into the fourth inning, when an error and two walks added to his already high pitch count, causing him to be taken out. He ended up with only two earned runs. Palms struggled as well, giving up six runs over seven hits in five innings while throwing 101 pitches.

Harvard will bring an explosive offense to the table as well, having scored 26 runs in its past two games. The Crimson’s top hitter is outfielder Matt Rogers, who has already hit six home runs and racked up 23 RBI on the season for a .413 batting average. Rogers is paced by four teammates — pitcher Taylor Meehan, infielder Harry Douglas, outfielder Dillon O’Neill and outfielder Tom Stack-Babich — all of whom are batting over .300 on the year.

But the Harvard pitching staff is a different story: None of the four typical Crimson starters holds an ERA below 6.50. Harvard’s team ERA is an unimpressive 9.65, though many of those runs surrendered were against superior non-Ivy League competition.

The Crimson remains a formidable opponent, however, albeit one that Princeton should be able to neutralize. If the Tigers break out of their offensive slump and their pitchers return to form, they should dispatch the Crimson and Big Green with little trouble.