The Glove: Baseball

Good news, Big Green sports fans: Dartmouth baseball looks to exceed expectations this coming season. The Big Green leads the Rolfe Division (named after Dartmouth graduate, former Dartmouth athletic director and five-time World Series winner Red Rolfe) by 2.5 games over Yale, holding a 7-1 record in conference play and 13-9 overall -- the only team in the Ivy League with a winning overall record. Though the conference season has 12 games left, Dartmouth is in excellent shape, and will host second-place Yale in two doubleheaders this weekend.Dartmouth's strength appears to be its lineup. Like most teams in college baseball, where aluminum bats favor offense over pitching, Dar tmouth's of fense is hitting .318 as a team, with eight of the 12 regulars (over 20 at-bats as of Wednesday) over .300. Their team on-base percentage is an impressive .417, and their slugging percentage is .449.Despite the team's lack of power (only 18 home runs and 58 extrabase hits in 22 games), this Big Green squad takes walks and gets on base. Michael Pagliarulo '09 leads the team offensively with a .412 batting average, a .500 on-base percentage, and a .662 slugging percentage with four home runs, impressive numbers overall from the junior.Outfielders Nick Santomauro '10 and Damon Wright '08 have also contributed to the Big Green's of fensive success, both hitting .372 on the season with on-base percentages over .400 and slugging percentages over .550.With this type of offensive balance in the middle of the order, it is no wonder that the Big Green is averaging 7.2 runs per game.On a negative note, the team so far has had horrendous perfomances when stealing bases, having been successful on just 13 of their 28 attempts, a percentage that would suggest that the Big Green should attempt far fewer steals (by contrast, its opponents have succeeded on 23 of 24 attempts).On the pitching end, there is a lot to like. Reliever Bobby Steinsdoerfer '07 has a 1.15 ERA in eight appearances (totaling 15.2 innings), allowing just six hits and striking out 14 (although he has also walked 13). Combined with fellow reliever Ryan Smith '11, who has posted a 3.24 ERA in 11 appearances, the Big Green appears strong at the back end of the bullpen. Smith has all four of the team's saves, despite allowing opponents a .323 batting average.Of the team's four regular starting pitchers, Russell Young '08 and Robert Young '10 have been ver y effective in the early going. Russell Young has a 3.28 ERA in five starts, with three complete games (because many college games are seven-inning doubleheaders, a complete game can be just seven innings) and one shutout, and is maintaining an impressive strikeout-to-walk ratio of 34-to-9.Robert Young has a 4.24 ERA in six starts with two complete games with a solid 26-to-7 strikeout-towalk ratio, although opposing hitters are batting .326 against him.On the other hand, Chase Carpenter '08 has a 6.28 ERA in five starts, allowing 51 hits in 28.2 innings. In four starts, Jake Pruner '11 has a 11.51 ERA and has given up 37 hits and 16 walks in just 20.1 innings.Since conference play has begun, however, these two (as well as the other two starting pitchers) have pitched well within the Ivy League, Carpenter allowing just four earned runs in 14.2 innings, allowing 15 hits and walking just one, with Pruner recording a 4.50 ERA in his two starts. Since the conference schedule is typically the easier portion of the season, there is no reason that this will not continue.In its eight Ivy League games thus far, the Big Green has a .881 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) and its opponents have been limited to just a .719 OPS, a drastic difference that reflects how well the Big Green has played so far. The team is averaging 7.6 runs per game and allowing just 3.9.Promisingly, the Big Green's only loss came to Gehrig Divisionleader Columbia, a team the Big Green split a double-header with last weekend. The team swept Penn and Princeton, two teams that would be above .500 in Ivy League play were it not for games against the Big Green, so one cannot credit Dartmouth's early success to an easy schedule.This is a good time to be a fan of Big Green baseball, and given the lackluster performances of many of Dartmouth's other headlining teams, let's hope the Big Green can take its first Ivy League title since the 1986-87 season. Its current form certainly indicates that this is a possibility.