Technically speaking, the 2005 Harvard baseball team has yet to see the light of day.

Ever since officially beginning the season on February 1, the Crimson has mostly been indoors, putting up the nets and practicing in the decidedly un-scenic confines of the Palmer-Dixon Tennis Courts and Lavietes Pavilion.

But while the team decries the obvious matter of cabin fever—an especially potent ailment given Ivy League teams’ relatively late starting dates—there is a silver, if obscured, lining.

The Crimson will actually kick off this year’s schedule on artificial turf, playing three games this weekend inside the Minnesota Twins’ similarly un-scenic Metrodome. Harvard will meet Louisiana-Lafayette on March 11, St. John’s on March 12, and Minnesota on March 13.

“We’re anxious to get ground balls going off of Astroturf,” head coach Joe Walsh said. “For the very first time, we’re opening up indoors...Hey, we may be the best team indoors in New England right now.”

According to Walsh, the set-up has also let the coaching staff transfer attention upon the more minute, but no less important, aspects of the game. Though outdoor on-field action often lends itself to players simply trying to blast the ball out of the park, indoor baseball facilitates work with bunt and first-and-third defenses, the running game, and swing mechanics.

“If we can do those little things better than other teams and be better prepared, then I really feel that we get a chance to win the tight ballgame,” Walsh said. “To me, the bigger the ballgame, the better your bunting game’s gotta be.”

ON ROTATION

For this weekend’s Metrodome Tournament, the Crimson will send two juniors and a freshman to the mound recently made famous by American League Cy Young winner Johan Santana.

Junior Javier Castellanos will toe the rubber on Friday, while Saturday will see freshman Shawn Haviland, followed by junior Frank Herrmann on Sunday.

Castellanos will match up with Louisiana-Lafayette, which pounded Harvard early last season by unnervingly high margins of 14-5 and 23-9.

This year, Walsh notes, the junior from Hialeah, Fla. will be increasingly leaned upon to recover the 61.2 glistening innings thrown by former captain and Ivy League Pitcher of the Year Trey Hendricks ’04—now within the Arizona Diamondbacks organization.

“[Castellanos] has worked extremely hard at his conditioning program, which has helped him,” Walsh said. “I think he just deserves it. He’s been throwing extremely well.”

Haviland, the frosh out of Farmington, Conn., will make his first collegiate appearance against St. John’s the day after.

“Haviland’s looking real good,” Walsh said. “He’s got a breaking ball that he can throw on any count. I think he’s going to be a very good pitcher for us over four years. And we’re going to use him a lot here as a freshman.”