Four years ago, Walsh might not have been so confident. After all, the kid who’d become the folk hero of Farmington wasn’t so widely heralded just yet. He also hadn’t, by Haviland’s own admission, cracked 5’2, 110 lbs. either. His position: shortstop.
Yet Haviland continued to tinker with his pitching mechanics and perfect the curveball he’d come to rely so heavily upon. When he finally did grow—seven inches prior to his sophomore season—he skipped the transition required of the many hard throwers who then decide to become pitchers, and suddenly his coach wasn’t limiting him to playing shortstop any more.
“It was kind of a weird thing,” Haviland says. “I didn’t pitch at all, and then my sophomore year I was the top pitcher.”
Consider Haviland’s rise up the ladder a continuing phenomenon. In six appearances this year, he has held opponents to just a .211 batting average, best on the Crimson for a pitcher with 15 innings or more.
It’s no wonder, then, that Walsh isn’t so concerned about what Haviland can do, but what he’ll be able to do next.
—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.