As young and talented as the Harvard throwers are, though, the 2000 season proved that no team can succeed on pitching alone.

This season, the Crimson hit just .258 as a team, the lowest mark in the Ivy League. Only one of the regular Harvard starters, sophomore shortstop Mark Mager, batted above .300.

Outside of Mager, the Harvard batsmen were very inconsistent in their success at the plate.

Sophomore second baseman Faiz Shakir, playing in his first season as an everyday starter, enjoyed a 13-game hitting streak during the month of April.

At the end of the season, however, Shakir cooled off considerably, collecting just one hit in his last 21 at-bats.

In addition, junior first baseman John Franey, who tied for the team-lead in home runs (5) and was second on the Crimson in slugging percentage (.412), finished the season with just a .227 batting average.

Franey's woes were representative of the struggles faced by the rest of the team's traditional run-producers.

Junior center fielder Scott Carmack, for example, batted just .237 this season after going .328 one year ago. Senior tri-captain Erik Binkowski, meanwhile, had just 11 RBI this year after driving in 31 runs in 1999.

Such lack of production from the middle of the order forced Walsh to undertake some desperate measures to try to score runs.

Toward the middle of the season, Walsh tried out Mager, a natural one- or two-hole hitter as demonstrated by his team-leading 21 steals, in the third spot.

Mager did prove up to the task, driving in 24 runs on the season, good for second on the team behind sophomore third baseman Nick Carter, who had 27.

Still, such measures got away from what Walsh had wanted to do and what has been successful in the past.

"Mager had a good year for us hitting in different spots," Walsh said. "But he's not a three-hole hitter."

A true bright spot for the Crimson this year was the emergence of sophomore catcher Brian Lentz.

Playing in his first season as a college player, Lentz hit a respectable .283 with the second-highest hit total on the squad (39).