c/o Avi Friederich, Staff Photographer

Wesleyan’s men’s baseball team opened their season last weekend against the Amherst Mammoths, winning the second of a 3-game series. This year’s truncated season is structured as a rivalry-filled sprint, as the Cardinals compete against Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, and Hamilton as part of the NESCAC’s West Division. In addition to the season’s short length, its structure lends itself to intensity. Each Saturday consists of two seven-inning doubleheaders, similar to Major League Baseball’s (MLB) efforts to remedy COVID-induced layoffs in its 2020 season.

Last weekend, the Cardinal’s pitching also resembled an MLB game, as Wesleyan pitchers combined to strike out 28 batters across 22.0 combined innings of work, far surpassing staff rates in the 2019 and 2018 seasons. Although the results in the first and third games were disappointing, Cardinal pitchers showed flashes of brilliance throughout their work, highlighted by Pat Clare’s ’19 eight K’s through 6.0, as well as Coleton Reitan’s ’22 9 K’s through 4.2 en route to a 7–6 Cardinals win in the second half of their double-header.

Clare, who pitched the season opener, offered thoughts on his performance in the game.

“Amherst has a few really good bats in their lineup and spoil a ton of pitches,” Clare said. “My delivery has always been deceptive but my approach has changed slightly since I am able to throw my fastball by hitters more so than in years past.”

This change manifested itself most clearly in the top of the second inning. After letting up a walk and a single to place men on first and third, Clare struck out Amherst’s Aidan Park and Jackson Reydel, with Clare seeking to close the inning without damage. The deception in Clare’s delivery stems from a sidearm arm slot that, against right-handed batters, appears to move the ball from their batter’s box into the strike zone. Unfortunately, Wesleyan’s bats did not reciprocate and, after amassing just three hits, dropped the season opener by a score of 4–0.

Having not played since the 2019 season, Wesleyan upperclassmen have seen their role on the team grow dramatically since their freshman and/or sophomore season, along with 16 underclassmen on the team who saw their first collegiate action last weekend.

Reitan, who got the win Saturday evening, reflected on the dramatic shift in role and leadership from his 2019 season in which he threw 12.0 innings, primarily in relief.

“My role has certainly grown since the last time we were a team playing games; from a freshman searching for innings to an upperclassmen in the starting rotation,” Reitan said. “I might not be the most vocal of leaders, but I certainly see myself as someone who leads by example, in performance and attitude as well as someone any of the younger less experienced guys could look up to.”

On Saturday, Reitan’s strong start was buoyed by seven Cardinal runs in the bottom of the second inning. Resisting the specter of some late-game heroics by the Mammoths, the Red and Black hung on to win 7–6. Wesleyan’s bats remained lively on Sunday, once again scoring seven, but ended up falling 12–7 to finish the series with a 1–2 record to begin their season. Although the Cardinals tied the game 4–4 after a crooked four-run first inning by Amherst, the Mammoths could not be kept off the board in the latter half of the game, scoring runs in the fifth, seventh, and eights innings en route to a comfortable win despite the offensive fireworks.

Playing only 11 games this season, each game will be critical to attaining this year’s NESCAC Championship, in which the top team from each division will face off in a best-of-three series on May 8th and 9th. The Cardinals are well aware of this pseudo-tournament atmosphere and its implications for each game.

“The truncated season certainly changes our team’s mindset,” Clare said. “Every game has a playoff intensity to it, but our team handled the pressure tremendously and made some big plays in big spots. The results were disappointing, but we have a very young team and will keep improving as the season progresses.”

Although the goal is always to hoist a trophy at the season’s end, the prospect of personal and team improvement is a common thread, as well as the joy of being back on Andrus Field this spring.

“A shortened season is better than no season at all,” Reitan elaborated. “Each game we get to play this year I am very grateful for…Even as each game is essentially a playoff game and the mindset is to win, we’re out there enjoying being able to play baseball in a Wesleyan uniform again.”

The Cardinals’ season continues with a home-and-home against Hamilton, with a doubleheader on Saturday, April 10 in Middletown followed by a Sunday, April 11 afternoon series finale away in Clinton, NY.

Andrew Simard can be reached at asimard@wesleyan.edu.