Yale Games

Because the below post is comment-deficient somehow, here's a new one for the Yale games. Harvard won Game One behind ace Shawn Haviland's one-hit shutout, his finest performance of the year, 2-0. But Adam Cole, a surprise starter in Game Two, lost control after that and Harvard trails 6-0 with Jake Bruton on in relief.

Joe Walsh, All Class

I already mentioned the peculiar Beanpot fate of UMass, an apparent innocent victim of the Ivy League's decision to reschedule the Yale doubleheader on the day of the Beanpot. Well, cry for them no more:

While head coach Joe Walsh will usually opt for playing two games instead of one on any given day, this is one instance where that is not the case. Playing the Bulldogs on Wednesday means that Harvard will have to forgo its place in the annual Beanpot at Fenway Park.

Unable to play in the event, a disappointed Walsh prepared his team for a pivotal series against the Bulldogs instead. But he also did something out of the norm, setting in motion a plan that would allow Massachusetts its rightful place in the renowned ballpark. Walsh spent most of his Tuesday on the phone with the Red Sox organization, UMass and Holy Cross, proposing that the Crusaders be allowed to take Harvard’s place for the game.

How about that? Good job here by Coach Walsh, and good job by the Red Sox for allowing this to happen. Now we can only hope that whatever residual anger Harvard feels for missing the Beanpot, it takes out on Yale baseball on Wednesday.

Update: Jon Lehman of the Crimson savages Yale in this column.
Update 2: Joe Walsh is straight-up mad at Yale:

"We appreciated the fact that we're guests over there [Fenway]," said Walsh. "It's an honor to play over there.

"The Yale coach [John Stuper], he got to play in The Show, he was in the big leagues. I hope he hasn't forgotten what it means to the kids.

"That's not just a big league park -- that's Fenway."

Update 3: The comments on this post seem to have vanished in my updating: Sorry about this. There were two, generally expressing approval of what Walsh did. I'll try to figure out how to re-activate the comments here.

Dartmouth remains meaningful.

Harvard split its series with Brown this weekend, meaning at the very least that the Dartmouth series next weekend will be meaningful. The Ivy League has moved the makeup games from a week ago to Wednesday instead of Tuesday--more on that in a second--but regardless of what Brown does at Dartmouth and Harvard does against Yale at home, there will be meaningful Rolfe Division baseball next weekend. No matter how bad their team is this season, get ready for more of the brilliant young members of the Loudmouth Brigade.

This weekend saw another winning Max Perlman start, a costly and rare bad outing by Jake Bruton, another stout effort by Brad Unger (125 pitches), more Matt Vance power (the team's leader in slugging percentage) and more good stuff from Adam Cole, setup man. But anyone can read a boxscore. Were you there? Tell us what you saw in the comments.

Meanwhile, the Ivy League's decision to move the makeup games to Wednesday has cost Harvard a trip to Fenway Park to play UMass in the Beanpot consolation game. I wonder why the league made the switch--did someone lobby for to push so that the teams could have Saturday's starters able to go against league opposition on three days rest? [Update: Yep, it was Yale.] Does this mean we'll have Perlman and Haviland on Wednesday--if so, I imagine we'd flip the rotation next weekend and have Boomer and Unger Saturday and Perlman and Haviland on three days once again on Sunday. Or, Max Warren gets involved. I can imagine most coaches wanting to avoid getting to their fifth or sixth starters at this point in the season--especially Brown, whom I suspect doesn't have anyone quite as steady as Warren waiting in the wings.
Still, Fenway day has always been one of my favorite days of the year as a follower of Crimson baseball, and it's too bad the players don't get to experience it this year (they've already lost out on a first-round game due to Fenway's increasing reluctance to make the park available for the Beanpot at all). Although I've gotta say, as unfortunate as this is for Harvard, it's gotta be even worse for UMass.
Finally, a hearty congratulations to Joe Walsh for winning his 500th career game. More on this in a future post.