Respite From Ivy Play with Manhattan in Town for Three Games

Saturday, May 7

Hanover, N.H.

11:30 AM

Dartmouth College

Manhattan

Cole Roland mid-windup against CCSU, March 19, 2022

Cole Roland has struck out 10.88 batters per nine innings this season.

Photo by: Mike Janes

Respite From Ivy Play with Manhattan in Town for Three Games

5/6/2022 3:28:00 PM | Baseball

ESPN+ (Game 1)ESPN+ (Game 2)ESPN+ (Game 3)Live Stats @BigGreenBasebal Dartmouth Notes

The only previous meeting between the two teams ended in a tie … 122 years ago

By: Rick Bender

DARTMOUTH (21-16) vs. MANHATTAN (18-23)
May 7 DH (11:30 a.m.) • May 8 (Noon) • Red Rolfe Field at Biondi Park • Hanover, N.H.

Respite from Ivy Play
While most of the Ivy League are in the middle of final exams, Dartmouth will have one last tune-up before its final conference series next week with Manhattan in town for three games this weekend. The Big Green have an opportunity to finish the year with an even record or better against non-conference opponents; they only need to win the series to accomplish the feat for the first time since 2017.

A Look Back at the Past Week
• Dartmouth won its fifth of six Ivy League series thus far, taking two of three on the road at Harvard.
• Justin Murray was the offensive star in the 8-6 victory in the opener, going 3-for-5 with four RBIs, two coming in the ninth on a two-run blast that proved to be the difference.
• Nathan Skinner picked up his fifth win on the mound with a quality start of six-plus innings while allowing just two runs on eight hits, and Jack Metzger came on to pick up his league-leading sixth save.
• The Crimson took the second game, 6-1, as Dartmouth mustered just six hits, led by Nathan Cmyela with a pair of knocks.
• Murray was center stage on the mound in the finale, matching Skinner by allowing just two runs over six stanzas, striking out six as well to earn his fourth win in a 15-2 blowout.
• The Big Green bats banged out 17 hits, four apiece for Cox and Kade Kretzschmar with the latter falling a double shy of the cycle. Every starter scored at least one run as well.

Overall Record vs. Manhattan
• While this is not the first meeting between these two schools on the diamond, one can be forgiven for not recalling the most recent (and only) one almost exactly 122 years ago, a game that ended in an 11-11 tie in New York on May 10, 1900.
• Dartmouth has played current MAAC schools 37 times over the years, mostly against Siena and Quinnipiac, boasting a combined 23-12-2 record.
• Head coach Bob Whalen has coached the Green in 34 of those 37 games, going 23-10-1.

Scouting the Jaspers
• Manhattan has struggled of late, losing 10 of its last 13 games, including a 1979 Cubs-Phillies moment (look it up) when it lost a 21-20 game at Albany on April 27.
• The Jaspers have put some runs on the board this year, averaging nearly seven runs a game with a team slash line of .283/.396/.401.
• Five regulars are batting over .320, led by David Bermudez at .373 while also topping the team with 16 doubles, 10 homers, 43 runs and 41 RBIs.
• The team as a whole is quite patient at the plate — walking more than five times a game — especially Matt Padre who is among the top 10 nationally with 42 walks while striking out just 11 times.
• The Jaspers will run given the opportunity with 56 stolen bases, but they have also been caught 20 times.
• The top three starters on the team boast three of the four-best ERAs on the staff with only one reliever, John Farley, owning an ERA south of 6.00.
• In the field, Manhattan has a fielding percentage of .966 with 49 errors and are among the bottom 30 teams nationally in double plays turned (17), but the Jaspers have thrown out more than a quarter of would-be base stealers.

Last Time Against Manhattan
Yeah, not afraid to admit I don't have many (any) details about that game in 1900, and even if I did, would you recognize any of the names?

Probable Starting Pitchers
• Dartmouth will keep its usual weekend rotation this weekend, beginning with RHP Nathan Skinner (5-3, 5.37). The senior is coming off a quality start at Harvard in which he allowed just two runs over six-plus stanzas, giving him his fifth win of the season, tied for third in the Ivy League. Manhattan will counter with LHP Will Hesslink (2-7, 4.48) who has struck out 59 batters in 64.1 innings. But his ERA ballooned about three-quarters of a point in his last start against Quinnipiac when he allowed eight runs in six innings.
• Senior LHP Trystan Sarcone (5-3, 4.81) had a similar experience last week to Hesslink, getting roughed up for six runs in 3.1 innings after posting a 1.65 ERA through his first five Ivy starts. He still leads the team in ERA and strikeouts (44). The Jaspers are expected to go with graduate RHP Jordan Warecke (3-5, 5.70) in game two. He does a good job of keeping the ball in the ballpark having surrendered just three home runs in 60 innings while fanning 50.
• The weekend will conclude with RHP Justin Murray (4-3, 8.22) on the bump for the Big Green. The senior pitched a strong six frames last week at Harvard, allowing just two runs on four hits while striking out six, improving to 4-0 in the Ivy League. Junior RHP Kyle Lesler (3-1, 3.94) will likely finish the series for Manhattan with 52 strikeouts in 45.2 innings this year and the team's best ERA.

What's Up Next
Dartmouth will host three more games to conclude the regular season against the Ivy League leader, Columbia, which has won 19 straight contests. The Big Green will need to win at least one of those games to keep the Lions from surpassing the longest winning streak in Ivy League history — 21 games, held by the 1970 Dartmouth team that played in the College World Series.

Another Series Victory
Dartmouth claimed its fifth Ivy League series out of six thus far in 2022 by taking two of three at Harvard on April 30-May 1, its first series win over the Crimson since 2016. The last time the Big Green won at least five conference series in a season with in 2011 when the team went 30-12 overall and 14-6 in the Ancient Eight but fell in the Ivy Championship Series at Princeton.

Welcome Back Fagler
Sounds like a sitcom, I know, but fans might recognize a familiar face in the green and white uniform of Manhattan — Tyler Fagler '20. The former Big Green right-hander is playing for the Jaspers as a grad transfer this year and has pitched in seven games, starting four. His best outing came two weekends ago out of the bullpen against Rider, shutting out the Broncs on one his for three innings. In his Dartmouth career, Fagler was 1-3 with 5.06 ERA over 37.1 innings, striking out 25 and walking just 10.

Four-Hit Phenoms
Both Tyler Cox and Kade Kretzschmar had four hits in the 15-2 win to clinch the series at Harvard, making up nearly half of the team's total of 17 knocks as eight of the nine starters had at least one safety. Cox now has four four-hit games on the season and is fifth in the nation in batting average (.423) and hits per game (1.78), while Kretzschmar achieved a career high and nearly hit for the cycle, falling just a double short of the feat that is known to have been accomplished by only two players in program history.

Return of Pitcher's Best Friend
A double play is generally referred to as a pitcher's best friend. Well, the Big Green had a lot of pitchers without that friend to lean on during the month of April as the Dartmouth defense did not turn even one in the first 16 games of the month. It wasn't until the final day of the month when Bryce Daniel, Tyler Cox and Justin Murray rolled one up in the second inning of the opener at Harvard, making Nathan Skinner a very happy hurler. The Green finished the weekend turning four twin-killings, two apiece in the two victories over the Crimson.

Records in Jeopardy
Justin Murray and Tyler Cox are both threatening to break a program single-season record this year. With 19 doubles, Murray is just two shy of the mark set by Jeff Keller '14 (21) in 2013. And at his current pace of 0.56 doubles per game (which leads the nation, as Keller did), he is on pace to finish the regular season with 22. As for Cox, he enters the weekend with 66 hits, nine shy of the single-season mark established by Mike Conway '99 (75) in 1998. The sophomore is fifth nationally in hits per game (1.78), and if he maintains that in the last six contests, he will finish the year with 77.
The pitching staff is also on the verge of setting a new team record for strikeouts. The record of 297 was set in 2016, and this year's group already has 285. It is very likely that record will fall this weekend.

ICS Hopes Still Alive
Dartmouth has not been mathematically eliminated from a berth in the Ivy Championship Series, but it will take an awful lot for the Big Green to make it. First, the team will need to sweep Columbia in the three-game series in Hanover on May 14-15. On top of that, Penn would need to not only lose all three games at last-place Princeton that weekend, but also a makeup game against Harvard, since the Quakers own the tiebreaker with Dartmouth as the only team to win a series from the Green this year.

One Streak Ends, Another Continues
Senior Kade Kretzschmar had reached base safely in 25 consecutive games entering the game against Holy Cross, the longest such streak by a Big Green player in 13 years (Jim Wren '10). But the Crusaders stuck him with the collar (0-for-4) to bring the streak to an end. But after hitting safely in all three games at Harvard, Tyler Cox has matched that total entering this weekend.