Opening Day: Outside For the First Time

March 4

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of opening day. It’s a combination of excitement and nervousness that kept me up the night before our season-opening double-header against Swarthmore, tossing and turning in bed for four hours, before I could finally fall asleep. And I wasn’t the only one. When I got on the bus Saturday at 7 am, I learned that the majority of players on the team couldn’t sleep either. Ah, the opening day jitters.

Perhaps contributing to this feeling was that these games marked the first time, because of weather, that we were able to play outside on a baseball field since the fall season ended. Talk about being thrown into the fire. During batting practice and pre-game warm-ups, the infielders tried to get a read on how the ball hops differently off the dirt as opposed to off the hard floor inside the Walker Field House while the outfielders took some of their first reads on fly-balls since the fall. Although at times we were a little rusty in the field, overall it was a good showing considering it was our first time outside. Even though we were used to playing inside, it’s still the same game we’ve been playing all our lives. We turned multiple double-plays at key moments in the games and hauled in some spectacular catches, one of which came from sophomore centerfielder Adam Murphy. Leading the second game by one run, Murphy tracked down a deep shot to the left-centerfield warning track and made an over-the-shoulder, falling catch.

At the start of the season it is expected that pitchers have an advantage over hitters, who haven’t faced real, live pitching outside since the fall. And on Saturday, the safe bet won. Senior pitcher Tyler Bellstrom kept us in the first game, allowing three earned runs over five innings. But we struggled, especially at the top of the order, to produce hits. Senior Zack Miller’s two hits and sophomore Devon Luongo’s three hits were some of the lone bright spots at the plate in the first game.

Our strong pitching continued in the second game, and we were able to pick up the bats as well to produce our first win of the season. In his first college start, freshman John MacGregor mowed down the Swarthmore bats, allowing just one run over during his complete-game outing. Pitching as though he had three years of experience under his belt, MacGregor showed an impressive amount of poise on the mound. At a critical point in the game - with us leading by two runs but with Swarthmore threatening to score with two runners on and the number three-hitter at the plate – MacGregor apparently struck the batter out and we all rushed off the field and into the dugout. But the umpire reversed the call, saying the hitter had foul-tipped the ball, and after a few minutes we were forced back onto the field where a hit surely would have cut the lead and turned momentum to Swarthmore’s side. But MacGregor was able to stay composed and induce a groundout. With our bats coming alive as well in the second game (seven of nine hitters had at least one hit) we grabbed our first win and ended the day with a split.

Personally for me, opening day had a little bit of everything. It was my first time ever playing first base in a non-exhibition game and I was happy with my performance in the field. Opening day also saw my first bloop hit fall between the shortstop, second baseman, and centerfielder and my first time getting picked-off. Even with mistakes and 30-degree weather included, being outside playing a game beats practicing inside any day.

But on Tuesday, after a storm dropped around five inches of snow on Poughkeepsie, we were back indoors. We have just less than two weeks until our home opener against MIT, which falls over spring break, and hopefully, we will be able to practice outdoors before then. Hopefully too, we will all be able to catch up on sleep.