Tigers keeping pace with Cornell
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Scott Bradley does not expect a repeat of last season’s run away Gehrig Division crown for his Princeton University baseball team.
The Tigers went 15-5 in the Ivy League last year to win the Gehrig by five games. It’s going to be a lot tougher to win the Gehrig this season.
”I think we’ll be OK,” said Bradley, the longtime Tigers head coach. “The whole league is better, especially our half. I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes down to the last game at Cornell.”
The Tigers slipped a game behind Cornell in the Gehrig standings despite an outstanding weekend. Princeton swept Yale on Saturday, and split with Brown on Sunday to move to 6-2 in the Ivies. Cornell is 7-1 after sweeping its weekend. The Gehrig half does not have a team with a losing record, as both Penn and Columbia are 5-3.
”I think the whole league is so balanced,” Bradley said. “There’s a lot of good pitching. Just like last year, there’s a lot of low scoring, close ball games. It’s a matter of who gets the two-out hit, who gets a stop when they need to, who has the best defense.
”Everybody in our half got off to a good start the first weekend,” he added. “Cornell and Columbia were 3-1. Penn went 2-2. If you lose a game, you have to be able to come back and rebound.”
In starting with its pitching, the Tigers can find plenty of sources of confidence. Hun School graduate and Montgomery resident Mike Ford pitched the opener against Yale and struck out three in the 6-3 win. Zak Hermans pitched 8Ð and struck out six in a 2-1 win over Yale in the second game Saturday.
Sunday, it was Matt Bowman who delivered a masterpiece for his first shutout of the year, 8-0, at Brown. Kevin Link had a rough start in the second game as he surrendered six runs, five earned, in four innings, and the relief was touched up plenty as well in a 13-6 loss.
”The big thing we have going for us from last year and year before is the four guys, Ford and Herman and Matt Bowman and Kevin Link, they’ve been through all this stuff before,” Bradley said. “They’re very consistent. They don’t walk guys. They compete. They pound the strike zone. It’s not like they’re going to beat themselves. That helps when you’re playing close ball games.
”Michael Figgins, he’s shown he can be a really big-time pitcher. He has our most resilient arm. We use him in a lot of situations. You might see him in two or three games over a weekend.”
If last year’s closer, A.J. Goetz, could regain his command and return to the form of a year ago, the Tigers would be in even better shape pitching-wise.
Princeton would have more confidence if its offense were clicking the way it had expected it to. Players that were among the team leaders last season have gotten off to slow starts, but with four games per weekend over the next three weeks, the Tigers are hopeful that their swings will come around quickly.
”I don’t feel we’ve had an offensive stretch where we’ve clicked on all cylinders,” Bradley said. “We’ve seen a lot of left-handed pitching. Yale will throw two at us. We’ll probably see three against Penn. We have a lot of left-handed bats.”
Against Brown, John Mishu went 5-for-9 with 5 RBI and four runs to lead the offense. Mishu had a pair of home runs. Against Yale, it was Bowman who had four hits and three RBI, and Tyler Servais had three hits and scored twice.
”Some of the guys offensively that we really expected to continue and carry on have struggled initially,” Bradley said. “It’s tough, we have such a small sample size. A lot of these guys are still short of 50 at bats. You like to think if they’re going to get to where they’re usually at, that means there’s a lot of hits left.
”Sean Mulroy and (Alec) Keller and Bowman are hitting at such a high clip,” Bradley said. “Ford got off to a slow start. Alex Flink, who hit well for us, is under .200. Nate Baird was under .200. Jonathan York, who hit above .300 last year, is under .200.”
Mulroy, who had been batting well over .400 going into the weekend, went just 3-for-16. Alec Keller is now the only Princeton player batting over .400 at .407. Mulroy still leads the team with seven home runs and had driven in 26 RBI.
”He’s been as good as anyone I’ve had,” Bradley said. “He’s athletically so good. He plays so hard every day. There’s just a big carryover. He’s got seven home runs. We have two guys with two (before Mishu’s two home runs Sunday). Keller, who showed us good things as a freshman but was banged up and had nagging injuries, has been terrific. Both he and Mulroy are over .400. And Bowman has been phenomenal with the bat.
”Stevie Harrington had been up over .300. Ryan Albert has been a little consistent. Mike Ford is off to a slow start. He normally hits everybody. We hope everybody gets it going so we won’t have quite as many close games and won’t have to rely on our pitching quite as much as we have.”
The Tigers can still lean on their strong backbone of pitching, but they’ll need some timely hitting to come around to earn another crown in a far improved Gehrig Division that could come down to the final game of the Ivy season.