Friday, April 01, 2005

St. Thomas is for glovers

Nine innings of error-free ball by the Harvard nine against St. Thomas, and some late-inning heroics by Ian Wallace (starting at second for an absent Farkes) and Andrew Casey. Matt Brunnig gets his fourth save of the spring. Shawn Haviland, interestingly, comes in to pitch a scoreless eighth to set the stage for the Crimson's rally in the ninth.

And so, with the games about to count, we're left with a few questions (we'll mercifully leave off the shoulder ones). Will there be a settled lineup this early in the season, or will the experimentation continue well into April? Vance is obviously the leadoff guy, and Salsgiver has bounced around but would make sense batting second (although Walsh has put Morgan Brown in the second spot a lot on this trip), followed by something like Farkes, Mann, Wilson, Klimkiewicz as the heart of the order.

Assuming at this point that Wilson plays third and Klimkiewicz is at first, has Ian Wallace played his way into at least an outfield spot? He's batting .313 after not playing at all Harvard's first weekend. Is Rob Wheeler (.368) a safe DH bet? And one wonders what Casey (five games started, .444, tonight's game winner) is capable of behind the plate, and whether Mann as a result could alter that equation by DHing a few games... or for that matter if Casey could...

More pressingly, will they get both games in Saturday? The weather forecast for New York does not inspire confidence.

2 comments:

Elephantitis Balls Man said...

Saturday's games against Columbia have been postponed for Monday, says gocrimson.com. Penn still on for Sunday.

-- Pablo

Faiz said...

Pablo, looks like there's some competing information. Columbia says we're starting at their place on Sunday.

http://gocolumbialions.collegesports.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/040105aaa.html

Would make more sense this way, but we'll see.