Baseball: Tigers hope to continue Gehrig Division’s dominance

For the Tigers (9-11 overall, 3-1 Ivy League), it’s the weekend of the Bulldogs and the Bears. Princeton will look to continue dominating this weekend as it travels to Yale and Brown for a pair of doubleheaders.

The bumbling Bulldogs were outscored by a margin of 18-3 in their Ivy debut as they fell to Columbia and Penn in a four-game sweep. Yale (6-18-1, 0-4) is going into the weekend on a six-game losing streak, and it doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon — the Tigers defeated the Bulldogs by scores of 6-3 and 7-1 when they met last year. The Bulldogs only have one hitter above .300 — infielder Cale Hanson is hitting .378 — and the team is hitting .224 on the season.

On the flipside, Princeton is hitting .285 and are led by two hitters posting marks above .400.

Senior catcher Sam Mulroy (.432) and sophomore second baseman Alec Keller (.425) have consistently anchored the offense this season and are currently the top two hitters in the league.

Mulroy will be looking to carry his momentum into the record books this weekend. After hitting his 24th career home run and seventh of the season at Rutgers on Tuesday, the senior captain is only two homers away from tying the all-time Tigers’ home-run record, and he is on pace to threaten the single-season mark of 13. Last year, Mulroy blasted a clutch three-run triple in the seventh to propel Princeton to an opening 6-3 win over the Bulldogs.

Defensively, the Tigers lead the league with a .969 fielding percentage. Mike Ford, who is expected to start the first game of the weekend, posts the lowest ERA of the starters at 4.30. While juniors Matt Bowman and Zak Hermans both have slightly higher ERAs, they are each averaging about one strikeout per inning pitched. The pitching staff as a whole, however, is toward the bottom of the pack with a 6.24 ERA. The only Ivy team with a worse ERA is Brown.

The Bears split doubleheaders with Columbia and Penn last weekend, games that were each delayed by one day due to rain. They won their first league game against the Lions before falling in the nightcap; the following day, Brown posted a strong offensive attack in a 12-2 defeat of Penn before dropping game two on a late comeback by the Quakers. While Brown (4-18, 2-2) posted the best scores from its division last weekend, the Bears are still sitting at fifth in the overall Ivy ranking.

When Princeton and Brown met last year, the Bears were no match for the Princeton offense. The Tigers started with a 7-4 win and followed up with a 12-2 slugfest for the sweep.

Princeton will take on the Bulldogs on Saturday and the Bears on Sunday, both at 12 and 2 p.m. This weekend will close out Red Rolfe division play for the Tigers, as they turn to their own division next weekend when they take on Penn (12-10, 3-1) for a four-game series.