Early Offense Leads Lions to Top of Division

When a single by Princeton’s sophomore designated hitter David Hale in the second inning of the Tigers’ April 12 game at Columbia was followed by a double, three singles, a walk, and a home run, Brett Boretti, the head coach of the Columbia baseball team, may have thought up some memories of his 2007 squad. That team had an affinity for falling behind early, as it was outscored by its opponents in innings one, two, and three.

This year, even with the game against Princeton, the Lions have avoided that trend. Rarely falling behind early during Ivy play, this team has used strong early pitching to propel itself within two wins of a Lou Gehrig Division crown. This was a goal last year’s team could have achieved without its slow starts.

Last year, the team’s first game against Penn foreshadowed two months of large early deficits. Three hits in the first and second inning put the Quakers up 5-0 before Columbia had hit more than two balls out of the infield. The next day, though Columbia pulled out the victory, it fell behind 3-0 after just two innings once again.

A week later, hosting Harvard and Dartmouth, the Lions surrendered the first six runs of a game against Dartmouth in an 8-3 defeat. The trend worsened as Brown and Yale combined for 14 runs in the first three innings of the four-game set as neither team ever trailed against Columbia. Despite going 5-3 in its next eight games, against Princeton and Cornell, the Light Blue fell behind in four of the games, losing one and rallying in the rest.

Constantly facing these deficits left the 2007 Lions with two choices—lose big or rally. Columbia was outscored 117-61 in the first three innings and by just 32 combined in the remaining six—29 of which came in the fifth inning. The team was just 6-19 when it failed to score first.

That team also finished 10-10 in Ivy play and 16-28-1 overall, well outside of title contention.

This year’s team is 11-5 in Ivy play, three games up on its closest division foe—Princeton. With just four Ivy games remaining, all coming against 6-9-1 Penn, a spot in the Ivy title game is more than a possibility, it is expected.

One thing that has changed from last year to this year is scoring early in the game. Columbia did fall behind 9-1 in the first three innings of the game against Princeton. It also fell behind 4-0 to Yale and 5-2 Dartmouth in losses.

However, that has been rare. While the Lions have been outscored 49-18 in the third inning this season, they have outscored opponents in the first two innings, surrendering just 46 runs. Their run differential in the first two innings is better than in any other pair of consecutive innings this season.

With those early deficits to Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale, there was a three-run second against Brown, a 7-0 lead on Harvard, and a 7-1 lead on Dartmouth all before Gehrig Division play.

In its most recent series in Ithaca, Columbia tallied two blow-out victories and led from start to finish in the other. Even in their lone loss of the weekend, the Lions got on the board early. Nick Cox walked to start and the game and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Two innings and five runs later, the Light Blue held a 5-0 lead.

With just four Ivy games left, Columbia has a chance in the first of these four to all but seal a Gehrig division title with a win. If it wants to, those first five runs may decide it. Columbia claimed them against Cornell but it was Penn with the early 5-0 lead last season.