Cotuit Suffers Historically Bad Loss to Falmouth
By: Shane Petagna (The University of Tampa)
COTUIT, Mass. - On Aug. 11, 1963, the Bourne Braves won a game by a score of 45-1 and set CCBL records with 31 hits, 51 total bases, 37 RBIs, and 56 at-bats.
The Falmouth Commodores came very close to making history in a 27-2 massacre of the Cotuit Kettleers at Lowell Park on Friday, in which the offense combined for 26 hits, 49 total bases, and 22 RBIs in 52 at-bats.
Eight players had multi-hit games as some starters had as many as seven at-bats. Travis Bazzana (Oregon State) recorded six hits for the Commodores and homered twice, finishing a triple shy of the cycle while driving in eight runs of his own. Michael Eze (Georgetown) went deep twice while batting ninth in the order in his first game back with Falmouth after his release from the team earlier in the season.
The game stayed relatively close for the first three innings, with Cotuit starter Brian Young (Rider) allowing two runs over his start after tossing an inning in relief two days earlier. Not wanting to extend Young on short rest, manager Mike Roberts opted for the bullpen to begin the fourth inning.
From there, that’s when the football scores began.
Will Jacobsen (Harvard) surrendered five earned runs in the top of the fourth inning on Eze’s first home run and a two-RBI triple from Tyler MacGregor (Northeastern) to make the game 7-0. The bleeding didn’t stop in the next inning, where Falmouth used a 14-run 5th inning to power the landslide victory.
The Commodores batted around the order twice, sending a total of 19 batters to the plate on nine hits and two errors. Jacobsen could only manage one out before Mason Murdock (UNC Wilmington) came out of the bullpen, but didn’t find much success. In total, Jacobsen and Murdock combined to allow 22 runs from the fourth through sixth innings.
Just about the only positive on the night for Cotuit came from Sean Keys’ (Bucknell) bat. The third baseman recorded three hits and drive in a run to continue his hot start to his Kettleers tenure. Keys improved his season totals to a .550 batting average and 12 RBIs.
“When a game is like that, each at-bat still counts to your name,” said Keys. “Whether it's the bottom of the ninth and a tie game or in a game like today, it still counts against you if you do wrong or it counts for you if you do good, so you just gotta stay focused.”
Cotuit does not have time to dwell on the loss as their West Division lead over the surging Hyannis Harbor Hawks fell to three points on Friday. A huge matchup between the two teams will take place on Saturday at Lowell Park at 4:30 p.m.
“[Roberts told us] baseball is a humbling game,” said Keys. “You just got to move on because it's one game out of a 40-something game season so we can't hang our heads about it. It just happens sometimes like this.”