The baseball team's quest for the Ivy League title got a lot more difficult this weekend. Hosting a quartet of games against Dartmouth, the Bears suffered a power outage, failing to get key hits in dropping three of four games. In the first of three intra-division weekends, Brown won the opening game on Saturday 8-2, but lost 3-1 in the nightcap and dropped 3-1 and 8-6 decisions on Sunday.
After this weekend's games, Brown sits one game behind Harvard and Dartmouth for first place in the loaded Red Rolfe Division at 9-3. Yale is in fourth at 8-4.
The losses were a trip into bizarro world for the Bears. The normally potent Brown lineup went relatively silent for games two and three and most of game four, while the at-times beleaguered pitching staff sparkled for all four contests.
"If you were to tell me my pitching would have done this - except for two innings the whole weekend our pitchers pitched great. With the wind blowing out, you'd think, 'OK, we're in great shape,'" said Head Coach Marek Drabinski, adding that the Bears' failure to adjust to how the Big Green hurlers were pitching led to the offensive drought.
"We've got some guys that refuse to make adjustments and try to hit the ball the other way, so they're taking that outside pitch and they just want to keep hitting those long fly balls to the warning track off the end of the bat," he said.
In Saturday's first game, scoring runs was not a problem, as is the case usually for this team. Behind 3-for-4 days from second baseman/outfielder Paul Christian '06, who scored two runs and drove in one, and catcher Devin Thomas '07, who scored twice and drove in two runs, the home team cruised to a victory. Christian hit his sixth home run of the year to lead off the first inning, and later leftfielder/first baseman Danny Hughes '06, who also drove in and scored two, hit his fourth homer of the year.
Bryan Tews '07 gave up just three hits and two unearned runs to pick up his third win of the year in a complete game.
Following the game-one outburst, Brown began struggling to put runs across the plate. To be specific, it was due to a lack of clutch hitting, rather than hitting in general, that was the problem. For example, against Dartmouth ace Josh Faiola, who upped his record to 5-1 by winning the second game, the Bears scored only one run despite getting seven hits and two walks.
The lack of timely hits wasted a solid performance by starter Shaun McNamara '06, who gave up only three hits and three walks over 8 1/3 innings, striking out eight. McNamara gave way to Rob Hallberg '08, who allowed an inherited runner to score in his first of three appearances on the weekend.
In Sunday's first game, taking advantage of scoring chances was not the problem, generating any chances at all was. Entering the contest, Dartmouth starter Jeff Wilkerson had allowed 15 earned runs in his four starts, good for a 7.50 earned run average. However, he looked like a star on Sunday, allowing just one unearned run and striking out seven in picking up the seven-inning complete game.
Ethan Silverstein '07 pitched 4 2/3 innings and allowed three runs to score. Hallberg finished the game for him, throwing 2 1/3 scoreless after allowing a pair of inherited runners to score.
For the first six innings of the back end of the doubleheader, the Bears again had trouble getting runs across, this time against starter Chase Carpenter (2-2, 6.32 ERA entering the game). Unlike the previous two games, the poor offensive output was accompanied by trouble on the mound. Starter Alex Silverman '08 had mentioned that he had some discomfort in his elbow to coaches before the game, but said he could go, according to Drabinski. Silverman lasted just four batters, allowing two singles and a walk and hitting a batter to score a run before being pulled for Jeff Dietz '08. Dietz was able to get out of the jam, allowing just one more run in the inning, but was hit hard in the second for six runs.
Dietz settled down and put up six zeros on the scoreboard after the second inning, but it took the Brown lineup until the seventh inning to wake up. Down 8-2, the Bears finally rallied, scoring three on a groundout by Thomas and home runs on back-to-back pitches by Dietz and Hughes. The Bears added another in the eighth and brought the winning run to the plate in both the eighth and ninth, but fittingly, they left five runners on base in those two innings and fell 8-6. Dietz led the way at the plate, helping his own cause by going 4 for 5 with two RBIs and a run scored. Brian Kelaher '08, inserted into the lineup at third base as part of an attempt to shake things up, made a case for some more playing time, going 3 for 4.
"We've got guys that don't want to make those adjustments, so they're not going to be in the lineup and I'll put some guys in there that at least will compete," Drabinski said.
"There's no reason for how we hit today, especially how we showed we could hit (Carpenter) later in the second game. It's just getting the job done, and we didn't," Hughes said after Sunday's contests.
After Dietz, Hallberg again came in to finish the game, throwing 1 2/3 innings. Over the weekend, he threw 4 1/3 innings of scoreless ball, although he did allow three inherited runners to score. Combined with two previous appearances, he now has a 10-inning scoreless streak.
