Cotuit Pitching Ready For Opening Day With Shutout Win on Martha’s Vineyard
Updated: Jun 7
By Shane Petagna
MARHTA’S VINEYARD -- The Cotuit Kettleers wrapped up the last of their two scrimmages before the start of the regular season, taking the ferry to defeat the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks 4-0 on Monday.
Much like Sunday’s exhibition against the Lexington Blue Sox, the pitching was on point from start to finish for Cotuit.
Over the two days, 14 different pitchers including nine today tossed scoreless outings. However, the outlier was Harry Deliyannis, who was the only Kettleer pitcher to allow a run in the game.
For the sake of giving all the pitchers game action before jumping into the season, the standard rules of baseball were bent. Deliyannis, in a full Cotuit uniform, started the game for Martha’s Vineyard with a Shark-infested defense behind him. He pitched two innings, getting out of the first unscathed and inducing two outs in the second inning before catcher Jacob Sharp came to bat.
Sharp took an elevated fastball from Deliyannis and deposited it over the fence in left field for a two-run homer.
“He was behind in the count, threw a fastball up and I took advantage of it,” said Sharp. “But it did feel a little weird being my own teammate. It's not fun playing against your own team.”
There was no silver lining for Deliyannis in surrendering a home run to his battery mate.
“I think I still like Jacob,” said Deliyannis. “And as far as home runs go, it was about 340 [feet]. If it's to centerfield it's a flyout so I feel worse about myself just making a really bad pitch than him hitting it out. I would want to hit it out if I got that pitch myself.”
The game ended in a similar fashion as it began, as Noah Reun’s appearance followed suit of Deliyannis as he pitched both the top and bottom of the ninth inning. He struck out two Sharks batters in the final frame of the contest.
Plenty of other Cotuit pitchers stood out, although the rest of the staff pitched just one inning apiece. Southpaw Camron Hill struck out the side in the fifth inning while Joe Whitman, Keaton Anthony, Cole Mathis, and Ben Grable each struck out a pair of batters.
“Obviously, we haven't exactly seen the kind of bats that we're going to be seeing going forward,” Deliyannis said. “But I think the way the staff has dominated, I think that's going to continue, for sure.”
On the offensive side of the ball, Brett Bateman had himself a nice afternoon, knocking two base hits and stealing two bags. Sharp followed up his homer by singling and stealing second and third base in the fifth inning. Ryan Galanie stole two bases as well to go along with an RBI single, all of which came in the top of the sixth inning.
Cotuit will have to wait for Opening Day on Saturday for their next game when they host the Chatham Anglers at Lowell Park. The team will continue to practice the rest of the week, including a workout at Fenway Park on Friday as part of a full day of CCBL action at the stadium.
