Author: Will Geoghegan

There were better lines and more important lines last night, but a 1-for-4 from a Harwich Mariner stands out.

It belonged to Dustin Ackley, who finally made his long-awaited Cape League debut in last night’s game at Y-D. The North Carolina sophomore was the national freshman of the year last season after hitting .402 with 10 home runs. He was on the Chatham roster for the summer but never made it to the Cape.

This spring, Ackley continued to shine, hitting .417 with seven home runs. I kind of thought he’d be a shoo-in for Team USA, and it wasn’t a surprise when he showed up on their invite list. But Ackley wasn’t on the final roster, so he headed for Harwich.

His arrival is big in its own right — he’s probably the top hitting prospect in his class, and he’ll give Harwich a huge boost.

But his arrival is also big for what it represents: the Cape League season is about to hit full speed. Ackley was one of the final players teams were waiting for, and now, things are finally getting sorted out. Final rosters will be set today. Already a lot of X’s are popping up on the stat sheet, as temporary players head home. Some temporary players will grab permanent spots.

Regardless of how it shakes out, when the dust settles, there won’t be much more shuffling. The players in uniform now are the players we’ll see the rest of the summer. For the most part, how the teams look now is how they’ll look in August.

That’s good reason to get excited about a 1-for-4.

Elsewhere

• Ackley’s day helped Harwich blow past Y-D 9-3. J.T. Wise (Oklahoma) went 3-for-4 to lead the Mariners while Chase Leavitt (Arkansas) went 3-for-5. Steve Kalush (Santa Clara) allowed one run in seven strong innings.

• Y-D’s lineup will look a lot different the rest of the way. As Russ Charpentier noted, two-sport star Jared Mitchell is heading home to participate in LSU’s football practice. Greg Miclat, who was hitting, .325 in the leadoff spot, is also gone. Miclat was a fifth-round pick this June, but it still doesn’t look he has signed, so I’m not sure why he left.

• Cotuit snapped its three-game losing streak with a 6-5 extra-innings victory over Chatham. Mike Bianucci (Auburn), who was back in the lineup after a day off yesterday, went 3-for-6 to lead the Kettleers. Nate Garcia (Santa Clara) got the start and went four scoreless innings. Drew Storen (Stanford), making his second appearance, picked up the win in relief. Chatham got a Tar Heel of its own, as second baseman Kyle Seager made his first start.

• Orleans scored seven runs. That’s not a misprint. The Cardinals, who have struggled mightily with the bats this summer, put up their best offensive day of the year to beat Brewster 7-3. Matt Bowman (Nevada) and Nate Freiman (Duke) each had two hits to lead the Cardinals, who moved to .500 with the win.

• Jonathan Kountis (Ohio Dominican), who had made five relief appearances, got his first start for Falmouth and made it count. He went five shutout innings and got the win as the Commodores beat Hyannis 4-0.

• In Sunday’s extra-inning game, several Bourne players got seven at-bats, which isn’t always fun or particularly good for the batting average. Jordan Henry (Ole Miss) got seven again last night, but he enjoyed them. Henry went 6-for-7 to lead the Braves past Wareham 13-4. He raised his average to .364. Kyle Roller (East Carolina) and Jamie Johnson (Oklahoma) each had two hits for Bourne, while Ricky Bowen (Mississippi State) worked six strong innings.

What to Watch For Tonight

• Sammy Solis (San Diego), who still has a 0.00 ERA, will get the ball for Chatham as the A’s host Y-D.

• Nick Hernandez (Tennessee), who left his last start early when he took a line drive off the foot, will be back on the mound tonight as the Cotuit hosts Bourne.

Say this about the Orleans Cardinals: they know how to win a close game.

Orleans beat Cotuit 5-4 last night, with the winning run trotting home on a suicide squeeze in the bottom of the 10th inning. That makes four one-run victories out of six total wins for the Cardinals this year.

In large part, it’s out of necessity. The Cardinals don’t score many runs, but the fact that they’ve won so many games while scoring so few runs is pretty incredible.

Last night’s five-run total matched their season-high, and they needed it against the high-powered Cotuit offense. Orleans pitchers Matt Thomson (San Diego) and Elliot Glynn (UConn) held the Kettleers to just one run through the first seven innings. But in the top of the eighth, Cotuit scored three runs with the help of three Orleans errors.

The Cardinals managed to bounce back with two in the bottom of the inning then won it in the 10th. Mike Murphy (Maryland) got the squeeze bunt down, and Alex Hassan (Duke) scored the run to give Orleans the victory.

The win moved Orleans to within a game of .500. For the Kettleers, it was the third loss in a row, but they still sit in first place with an 8-5 record.

The only other game on the schedule last night — Harwich at Hyannis — was rained out.

What to Watch For Tonight

• Nate Garcia (Santa Clara), who has quietly turned in two very good starts, will need another one as Cotuit tries to snap its longest losing streak of the year tonight at Chatham. Garcia has a 1.93 ERA.

After a week that saw several games end early due to weather or darkness, last night’s game between Bourne and Falmouth did not end early.

The game started at 5:30 p.m., but four hours and 15 innings later, it was still going. Eventually, Bourne’s Dusty Coleman (Wichita State) hit a two-run home run in the top of the 15th to break a 2-2 tie and give the Braves a 4-2 victory.

It was, by far, the longest game of the summer and it had all the trappings of a wild extra-inning affair. Bourne used six pitchers and Falmouth used seven. Four different players had seven at-bats, with one — Bourne’s Jamie Johnson (Oklahoma) — taking an unceremonious 0-for-7. All that, and Bourne starter Bryce Stowell (UC Irvine) actually tossed six no-hit innings before the Braves went to the bullpen.

Falmouth managed to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth, and from there, the teams traded scoreless frame after scoreless frame until Coleman broke through. Initially a Team USA invitee, Coleman arrived on the Cape last week and made his presence felt from the start. He continued that with his heroics Sunday. He’s now hitting .429.

The win moved Bourne to 6-7 and dropped Falmouth to 5-7-1.

Elsewhere

• Y-D finally got its first home run of the year, and it was a big one. Tony Sanchez (Boston College) hit a grand slam in the fifth inning last night to lead the Red Sox past Orleans 5-0. Nick Liles added a 3-for-4 day, and Craig Fritsch (Baylor) tossed seven shutout innings for the Red Sox.
• Hyannis handed Cotuit its second straight loss and got within a game of the Kettleers for first place. Colin Bates (North Carolina) tossed five solid innings for the Mets.
• Harwich got home runs by Joe Sanders (Auburn) and Jeff Cusick (UC Irvine) to blow past Chatham 10-4.
• Wareham had one of its best offensive days of the summer, rallying from a 5-1 deficit to tie Brewster 5-5. Four Gatemen had two hits apiece, and Steve Liddle (Vanderbilt) had four RBI. Caleb Coltham (Vanderbilt) struck out 10 in six strong innings for the Whitecaps. Brandon Workman (Texas) struck out seven for Wareham to take the league lead in that category.

What to Watch For Tonight

• Only two games tonight. Cotuit will try to snap its losing streak against Orleans, another team that has lost two straight. Harwich will visit Hyannis in the other game.

The second full week of the season was a bit of a strange one. Seven games were postponed because of rain. Two more were called early because of rain or fog. On top of that, dozens of players started arriving from Team USA and the College World Series, adding to the unsettled feeling.

But for everything that was in flux, plenty of things stayed the same. And as we start to get more settled, those are the things that may come to define the real trends, real team identities and real standouts that will mark the summer. We’re through roughly one-fourth of a 44-game season, so I feel like we’ve got a pretty good idea of how the landscape looks.

Of course, things are bound to change, and considering how good I thought Orleans’ offense would be and how good Chatham’s pitching would be (both have not been good), I will probably be wrong. But for the moment, I feel the need to lay some things out, to address the state of the summer so far and how it relates to what comes next.

So, since I’m not completely sure, here are “Four Things I Think I Think.”

Cotuit Can and Will Hit
The fact that they can hit isn’t up for debate. The Kettleers played five games this week and scored 40 runs. They still lead the league in batting average and runs scored, leaving no doubt that they’ve got some serious hitters. Is it just a fast start, though? I really don’t think so. Sure, a lot of the regular starters have gotten off to torrid starts and things will probably revert back to the mean at some point. But for this team, I think the mean will still be pretty good. With hitters like Mike Bianucci, Robbie Shields, Jason Kipnis, Kevin Patterson and Brett Jackson, the Kettleers have as much hitting depth as any team in the league.

The Pitching is Thin Again
Last season, for the first time in a long time, the Cape League was dominated by offense. There were good pitchers around, very good ones, in fact, but most observers agreed that the depth wasn’t there. This season, it may be missing again. A couple of pitchers have turned in great starts, but in the first two weeks, it’s been a lot easier to find slugfests than gems. In terms of statistics, things look very similar to last year, when the highest team ERA was 4.83 and when there were seven teams with ERA’s over three. So far this year, the high is 4.51, and there are again seven teams over three. By comparison, the 2004 season — a particularly strong one for pitching — had just one team with an ERA over three.

Old is Good
A lot of times in the Cape League, the freshmen have the most hype. They’re the ones who got an invite based purely on reputation. With not many of them on the Cape, only the best freshmen make it. As for the sophomores, they’re the emerging prospects, the ones who will dominate the draft board the next year. And the juniors? In general, they don’t have much of the hype. Some of them have been drafted, but not that high, so they haven’t signed. Others were off the radar when their college careers began, so they’re just now drawing attention. Either way, juniors on the Cape are generally a different breed. But this summer, they’ve been a good breed. Every leaderboard features a junior or two, with Cotuit’s Mike Bianucci and Hyannis’ Andrew Carraway carrying the torch. Bianucci is hitting .286 with four home runs and 16 RBI. Carraway is 2-1 with a .55 ERA and 18 strikeouts. Together, they’re helping prove that having a few juniors isn’t a bad thing.

MVP Numbers May Have a Different Look
Last year, all the top hitters in the league showed power, too. Conor Gillaspie, Jason Castro, Yonder Alonso, Sean Ochinko — all those MVP candidates hit well over .300 and also had at least four home runs. But this year, if things go the way they’ve been going, the MVP might go to a a different kind of player. Players with average-power combos have been noticeably absent this summer. Among the top 10 hitters, no one has more than one home run. And among the top five home run hitters, only one has an average above .300. If that trend continues, a player like Grant Green or Nick Liles, high-average guys who also steal bases, might carry the day.

That’s about all I’ve got. That was originally going to be “Ten Things…” but I couldn’t come up with that many. So I guess a lot of things are still uncertain, after all.

Anyway, a few random notes:

• Orleans’ offense has been pretty bad this season, but when you focus on that, you miss the fact that the Cardinals are still 5-6. Somehow, despite scoring 25 runs — an average of 2.5 per game, the Cardinals have managed to stay afloat. That means that if the bats can come alive even a little bit, Orleans might turn into a contender.

• Chatham’s pitching staff is about to get as big a boost as you can get. Four starting pitchers are expected to arrive this week — Louisville’s Justin Marks and the entire North Carolina weekend rotation of Alex White, Adam Warren and Matt Harvey. Marks was with Team USA, while the UNC trio was playing in the College World Series. All four figure to be major parts of Chatham’s rotation, a rotation that has been shaky so far.

• Cotuit, Harwich, Hyannis and Orleans will all play makeup games tomorrow, on what was originally a scheduled off day for the entire league. As a result, those teams won’t get a day off until July 14. By then, Cotuit and Harwich will have played on 19 consecutive days. It’ll be 18 for Hyannis and Orleans.

The Cape Cod fog finally made its presence felt last night. Sometimes, it’s frustrating when the fog rolls in, and I’m sure it was last night.

But it did help finish off something special.

Bourne’s Nick McCully (Coastal Carolina) tossed a five-inning perfect game as the Braves beat visiting Orleans 1-0 in a fog-shortened game.

I’m sure McCully would have liked the chance to make it a nine-inning perfect game, but five is still pretty good — and it still counts. McCully struck out five of the 15 batters he faced and was pretty much untouchable.

(Note: Reading a little more about this, I realized the game actually went into the sixth and Orleans broke up the perfect game, but that’s when the fog came in, so the game reverted back to the fifth inning, and gave McCully the perfect game.)

This was McCully’s third appearance and his second start. Both starts have come against Orleans. The first time, he allowed only three hits in five innings and he struck out six. With Saturday’s start factored in, McCully is now 2-0 with a .82 ERA. He has struck out 11 and walked two in 11 innings.

McCully’s big start comes after a very good spring at Coastal. The sophomore right-hander went 10-3 with a 3.63 ERA. He struck out 72 and walked only 27 in 89.1 innings. The year before, McCully was actually Coastal’s closer, but he pitched so well in a starting role this year that he stayed in the rotation.

Bourne is using him in the rotation as well, and he’s delivering. He has turned in the team’s two best starts this summer.

With the victory, the Braves moved to 5-7.

Elsewhere

• Also in that Bourne game, Eric Erickson (Miami) made his first start for Orleans and gave up just one run. An RBI single by Jordan Henry (Ole Miss) in the first inning was the only blemish, but it turned out to be the difference.

• Falmouth and Y-D traveled to Brockton last night for the Cape Cod Baseball Hall of Fame Classic and gave the fans there a pretty good game. The Red Sox held off a late charge from the Commodores to win 5-4. Jerry Sullivan (Oral Roberts) made his first start for the Red Sox and threw 6.1 solid innings, with a three-run third inning as the only trouble spot. Joe Kelly (UC Riverside) allowed one run in the ninth but buckled down to get the save. DeAngelo Mack (South Carolina) and Sean Ochinko (LSU) each had two hits and an RBI to lead Y-D. Falmouth’s Trevor Coleman (Missouri) went 3-for-4.

• I always have a tendency to think of non-roster players as being a notch below the guys on original rosters. But that’s really not the case, and there’s plenty of proof floating around. Wareham’s Ryan Pineda (Cal St. Northridge) is one such example. He’s still listed in the non-roster invitees section, but he was the Big West Freshman of the Year this season. He’s been good this summer, and he had two hits last night to lead the Gatemen past Harwich 3-2 in extra innings. Pineda, who’s hitting .262, had a home run and two RBI, including the game-winning RBI in the 10th. Starting pitchers Max Perlman (Harvard) and Chris Manno (Duke) both turned in solid six-inning starts, but the Gatemen eventually got to the Mariners’ bullpen.

• It’s always news when somebody shuts down Cotuit, and Brewster’s Tim Clubb (Missouri State) did the trick last night. Clubb has been Brewster’s best pitcher this season, and he continued the trend by putting the clamps on the best offense in the league. Clubb went seven innings and allowed only one run on four hits. Chris LaGrow (South Alabama) worked a scoreless inning of relief and Nick Christiani (Vanderbilt) picked up the save. Mike Freeman (Clemson) drove in all three of Brewster’s runs. As for the Kettleers, the two runs were the fewest they’ve scored in a game this year.

• Chatham’s Corey Olson (UC Irvine) was a late arrival, but he has been scorching since the day he got to the Cape, and he continued it last night. Olson went 3-for-3 to lead the A’s past Hyannis 3-2. In four games and 13 at-bats, Olson has 10 hits, putting his average at .769. The A’s got good pitching last night as well. Bobby Hernandez (Barry), allowed two runs in six innings, Jeff Lorick (Virginia) went 1.2 scoreless innings and Brad Boxberger (USC) went 1.1 innings for his fifth save. That ties Boxberger for the league lead.

• College World Series players keep trickling in. LSU’s D.J. LeMahieu made a pinch-hitting appearance last night for Harwich. I’d expect all the North Carolina players to be in lineups soon enough.

What to Watch For Tonight

• One of those North Carolina players, Colin Bates, is expected to get the start tonight against Cotuit. That’s a nice welcome to the Cape League. After getting only two runs last night, the Kettleers might also be a little angry.

Cotuit may be the best-hitting team in the league, but when it comes to home runs, not even the Kettleers can keep up with Brewster.

The Whitecaps hit two more home runs last night to bring their league-leading total to 11. James Meador (San Diego) hit his second and Connor Powers (Mississippi State) hit his third, powering Brewster to a 5-0 victory over Harwich. The win gave the Whitecaps sole possession of first place in the Eastern Division.

It also kept them well in front in the home run category. Cotuit is hanging in there with eight, but no other team has more than four. Yarmouth-Dennis, despite a strong offense, doesn’t have any.

How are the Whitecaps doing it? Four players are taking care of everything. Powers, Ryan Wheeler (Loyola Marymount) and Nate Lape (Marshall) all have three and all find themselves among the top four home run hitters in the league. Meador has the other two.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that those four players are delivering. All of them had great springs. Meador hit .380 with five home runs, Powers hit .348 with 11 home runs and Wheeler hit .345 with six home runs. The most impressive numbers, though, belonged to Lape, who hit .388 with 17 home runs for Marshall.

Lape is an interesting story. He’s a junior who has spent the last two years at Marshall after transferring from North Carolina. Originally, he wasn’t on the Brewster roster, but at 6’5 215 and showing this kind of power, he’s been making a good impression.

As for Brewster, home runs weren’t the only good thing. Starting pitcher Buddy Bauman gave the Whitecaps their best start of the year. The lefty from Missouri State allowed one hit in seven shutout innings, striking out six and walking three. Bauman had been Brewster’s best starter, but this was his first win. He now has a 1.02 ERA with 15 strikeouts.

Elsewhere

• Someone finally beat Andrew Carraway — barely. Orleans, which has a knack for doing just enough on offense, got one run off Carraway last night, and the pitching staff made that lead stand up. Rob Rasmussen (UCLA) went five innings and got the win, while four relievers kept the shutout intact. Carraway (Virginia), who was 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA, allowed only three hits in six innings, but was tagged with the loss. At the plate for Orleans, Angelo Songco (Loyola Marymount) did the damage with a fourth-inning RBI single.

• Cotuit kept on crushing the ball last night, beating Falmouth 9-2. Leadoff hitter Jason Kipnis (Arizona State) had his best day of the summer, going 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBI. Kevin Patterson (Auburn) went 2-for-5 with three RBI and a home run, while Mike Bianucci (Auburn) took over the league lead in home runs with his fourth. Cotuit didn’t need much in the way of pitching, but Matt Fairel (Florida State), making his first start since arriving from the College World Series, allowed just one run in six innings. Falmouth starter Jorge Reyes (Oregon State) had a tough night after a good showing in his first start.

• Wareham broke out of an offensive funk with a 9-3 victory over Chatham. In its previous five games combined, the Gatemen had scored eight runs. On this night, Cole Leonida (Georgia Tech) went 2-for-4 with three RBI and Aaron Baker (Oklahoma) went 2-for-4 with two RBI. Matt Way (Washington State) turned in a solid start for the Gatemen, allowing three runs in five innings while striking out eight. He’s now tied for the league lead in strikeouts. For Chatham, Grant Green continued a hot stretch with a 3-for-5 day. He’s now hitting .438, just behind the league lead.

• Bourne beat Y-D 8-3 in a rain-shortened game. Dusty Coleman (Wichita State), playing his third game since arriving from Team USA, went 3-for-4 with an RBI to pace a balanced Bourne attack. Four players drove in runs for the Braves.

What to Watch For

• Suddenly, pitching rotations are taking shape, as indicated by the pitching probables link on the league website. After a few weeks of scrambling, it looks like things are finally settling down.

• There are a couple of good match-ups tonight, headed by the one in Wareham. Harwich’s Chris Manno (Duke) will go against the Gatemen, who send Max Perlman (Harvard) to the hill.

• Jerry Sullivan (Oral Roberrs) will finally (hopefully) make his first start for Y-D. He was scheduled to go last week but when the game got postponed by rain, his turn in the rotation was skipped. He will go against Falmouth in the game in Brockton.

• Speaking of the game in Brockton, here’s a good article about it from the Quincy Patriot-Ledger.

It gets a little old talking about Cotuit’s offense.

But you kind of have to.

The Kettleers beat Y-D 10-3 last night to improve to 7-2, the best mark in the league. It was the fourth time this season that the Kettleers have hit double digits in runs. The rest of the league, combined, has done it twice.

Last night, it was another balanced attack as seven players in the lineup had hits. Kevin Patterson (Auburn) went 2-for-5 with two RBI to lead the way. Jeff Kobernus (Cal) had three RBI and Robbie Shields (Florida Southern) scored three runs.

That’s a typical night for the Kettleers, and it’s why they’re having so much success. Everybody in that lineup is hitting. I don’t know if Cotuit, inherently, is the best hitting team on the Cape. But that’s pretty much irrelevant. Every team in the league is essentially an all-star team. All of them have the potential to hit. Whichever one does it becomes the best hitting team in the league, whether they have the best collection of talent or not. Though, to hit like this, Cotuit clearly has some talent.

Now, I don’t want to make any crazy comparisons here, but this warrants mentioning. Last year’s Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, a benchmark for offensive juggernauts, also went 7-2 in their first nine games. But . . . they only hit double digits once. Just saying.

Elsewhere

• As I mentioned last night, Cotuit starter Nick Hernandez (Tennessee) had to leave the game when he got hit with a line drive. No updates on that yet.

• Also in the Y-D-Cotuit game, Y-D’s Nick Liles (Western Carolina) had two more hits to raise his average to .462, still tops in the league.

• We finally had a complete game last night. Well, kind of. Brewster’s Rob Gilliam (UNC Greensboro) went six innings in a game that was called after six due to rain. So it counts as a complete game. And Gilliam pitched well, allowing only one run in the 4-1 victory. Brewster got all of its runs in the top of the sixth inning. Jim Klocke (SE Missouri) and David DiNatale (Miami) combined to drive in three runs in the big sixth.

• DiNitale is a late addition to the Brewster roster. He played eight games on the Cape last year and hit .087. This was his first game for the Whitecaps, and he certainly is off to a better start.

• Harwich got the first big boost from a late arrival, as Tommy Medica (Santa Clara), in his second game since leaving Team USA, hit a walkoff RBI single to give the Mariners a 6-5 win over Wareham. Sean Black (Seton Hall) earned the win in relief with 5.1 dominant innings. He allowed no runs on one hit and struck out three. Now at 6-3, Harwich still has the best record in the East.

• Chatham got its offense going last night in a 7-4 victory over Bourne, a win that moves the A’s to within a game of .500. Corey Olson (UC Irvine) made his second start and was a home run away from the cycle. Grant Green (USC) also chipped in with a 3-for-4 day. He’s now hitting .419. Chatham’s bullpen did the rest last night, as Matt Zoltak (Clemson), Kevin Couture (USC) and Brad Boxberger (USC) combined to allow just one run in six innings.

• Once again, Orleans didn’t have a lot of offense. But the pitching staff kept that from being a problem. Martin Viramontes (Loyola Marymount), Matt Thomson (San Diego) and Kyle Kamppi (Georgia Southern) combined on a five-hit shutout as the Cardinals beat Falmouth 2-0.

What to Watch For Tonight

• Hyannis’ Andrew Carraway (Virginia), probably the top pitcher in the league so far, will take the hill tonight for his third start as the Mets visit Orleans.

• A real good pitching matchup in Brewster as Buddy Bauman (Missouri State), one of the Whitecaps’ top starters, goes against Harwich’s Matt Zielinski (Richmond). Bauman has a 1.69 ERA, while Zielinski didn’t allow an earned run in his only start. This is also a match-up of the top two teams in the East.

I’ll admit it. I enjoyed Summer Catch.

I’ve always gotten the feeling that Cape League fans aren’t supposed to like it, but I can’t help myself. I’m a sucker for underdog stories, and Freddie Prinze, Jr., tugged on the heartstrings, giving an outstanding performance as Ryan Dunne, a Cape Cod townie trying to make it big in the league he grew up watching.

So I enjoyed it, and now, every season, I find myself looking for the real Ryan Dunnes. Not necessarily local kids, but temporary players or guys from small schools — anybody who’s getting a huge opportunity and making the most of it.

Y-D’s Nick Liles and Cotuit’s Robbie Shields fit the mold this year.

They’re talented players, without question, but they play in relative obscurity, compared with many of their Cape League teammates. Liles is at Western Carolina, an up-and-coming program, but not a powerhouse. Shields plays at Florida Southern, a Division II school.

But Liles and Shields are fitting right in on the Cape.

Through Wednesday’s games, Liles, a third baseman/outfielder, led the league with a .457 batting average. He also led in hits and stolen bases. Shields, a shortstop, was third in the league with a .424 batting average. His two home runs were two more than any of the other top 10 hitters.

Obviously, they’re both off to fast starts, but there’s no reason to think they can’t keep it up.

Coming out of high school, Liles was one of the top players in North Carolina. The Giants made him a 29th-round pick in the 2006 draft. Since enrolling at Western Carolina, he’s done nothing but hit. His freshman year, he finished with a .335 batting average, and this year, he hit .346. Liles spent last summer in the Coastal Plain League, where he hit .317 and earned an all-star nod.

It’s been a similar path for Shields. He was a tremendous high-school hitter and he put up solid numbers in his first year at Florida Southern. He then made a big splash in the Clark Griffith Baseball League last summer, hitting .307 with 10 home runs and taking home league MVP honors. This spring, Shields upped his average to .348 and continued to show power.

So for both, the stage had been set. Now, they’re stealing the show, much like Freddie Prinze, Jr., would have done. They can only hope Jessica Biel is somehow involved.

A few notes:

• I listened online to a little bit of the Y-D-Cotuit game tonight. More on the game itself, tomorrow, but here’s one interesting tidbit: Arizona State outfielder Jason Kipnis, a fourth-round pick earlier this month, was playing second base. That matches up with this note from PG Crosschecker’s Allan Simpson: “There is a prevailing thought among scouts that he could even re-invent himself as an offensive-oriented second baseman with another year in school.” We’ll see if this is a regular thing for Kipnis or just something he experiments with.

• Also of note in that game, Cotuit starter Nick Hernandez, one of the top pitchers so far, had to leave the game after getting hit in the foot with a line drive. Cotuit manager Mike Roberts said in the postgame radio interview that he didn’t think anything was broken and that Hernandez should be OK.

• It’s no surprise that Cotuit’s Mike Bianucci leads the league in home runs and RBI. It’s just a surprise that he’s in Cotuit at all. The Auburn junior has long been considered a premier power hitter. He played on the Cape last summer and hit three home runs before an injury sent him home early. But for all the power, scouts question his other tools, a big reason why he went in the eighth round of the draft and not earlier. Since he was a draft-eligible sophomore, this was the second time he’d been drafted in as many years (23rd round last year), but the fact that he’s on the Cape again means he’s in no rush. If he’s out to prove something this summer, he’s doing a pretty good job.

• Russ Charpentier noted in the Cape League Insider Blog that Chatham expects North Carolina second baseman Kyle Seager to arrive on Saturday. Seager is a returning player who’s coming off a huge season with the Tar Heels.

• Strikeout-to-walk ratio is one of my favorite pitching stats, and it’s a pretty telling one so far. Harwich and Hyannis, who have the two best team ERA’s in the league, also have the best strikeout-to-walk ratios. Hyannis’ ratio is 3.6. Harwich is at 2.87. Also of note, Hyannis pitchers have 90 strikeouts in just 71 innings.

• Team USA is still waiting to announce two more players to its final roster. I think a lot of people assumed the two would come from the original invite list, but that may not be the case. ESPN’s Kyle Peterson mentioned in last night’s CWS broadcast that Fresno State third baseman Tommy Mendonca will play for Team USA. So I guess that final spot could go to pretty much anybody. The waiting might indicate that the other player was also in the College World Series finals. Regardless, the announcment should be out soon.

The Harwich Mariners have the best team ERA in the league at 1.78. They don’t really need another great pitcher.

But they’ve got one.

J.J. Hoover, a 10th round pick out of Calhoun Community College, made his first start for Harwich last night and allowed one run in six impressive innings. He struck out eight and didn’t walk anybody as Harwich beat Wareham 6-1.

The victory moved the Mariners to 5-3, and in addition to the pitching — which always seems to be there — this was the team’s best offensive day since the first game of the season, when they put up nine runs.

On this night, Brian Kemp (St. John’s) went 4-for-4 with two RBI, bumping his average up more than 100 points to .345. Joe Sanders (Auburn) and Shaver Hansen (Baylor) had two hits apiece.

For Hoover, that was more than enough. A 6’4 righthander, Hoover was touching 95 on radar guns this spring, and the Braves made him a 10th-round pick. He has committed to West Virginia, and he could be on the Cape with plans to go to school in the fall. He may also be trying to drive up his price. Either way, he did himself a lot of favors last night.

Elsewhere

• The other big news for Harwich is the presence of two players who should provide big lifts. Florida State infielder Jason Stidham made his first start since arriving from the College World Series. Catcher Tommy Medica (Santa Clara), who must have jumped on a plane as soon as he found out he wasn’t making Team USA, came off the bench late in the game. And the Mariners, believe it or not, aren’t done. They’re also waiting for North Carolina’s Dustin Ackley and LSU’s D.J. LeMahieu.

• Wareham’s offense continued to struggle last night, and the Gateman may not get the boost they were hoping for. Rice shortstop Rick Hague will take the summer off because of an injury and Indiana catcher Josh Phegley is currently having an MRI. Also, at one point, Blake Dean’s status was up in the air. Hopefully, that’s changed by now. Dean, an LSU outfielder, was as hot as anybody at the end of the college season.

• Brewster had a chance to close out a slugfest victory over Falmouth last night, but instead ended up with a slugfest tie. The Commodores scored a pair of unearned runs in the ninth to tie the game at 9-9, and that’s where it ended. On both sides, there was obviously a lot of offense. Brewster, which leads the league in home runs, got two more, one from Connor Powers (Mississippi State) and another from Ryan Wheeler (Loyola-Marymount). Falmouth got two RBI’s from Rice’s Diego Seastrunk, another arrival from the CWS.

• Cotuit moved into a tie for first place with an 8-3 victory over Bourne. Robbie Shields (Florida Southern) hit his second home run of the year and Mike Bianucci (Auburn) went 2-for-3 with two RBI to pace the Kettleers. Bianucci now leads the league in RBI with 14. For Bourne, former Team USA invitee Dusty Coleman (Wichita State) went 1-for-3 in his first game.

What to Watch For Tonight

• Thanks to the rain, four of the teams that played last night had taken two days off. Tonight, as we finally get back to a full schedule, Hyannis will actually be coming off three days without a game. The Mets last played on Sunday.

• Y-D will visit Cotuit tonight in a battle of the top two offensive teams in the league. They’re both hitting above .300 as a team. Last time they played, Y-D won 9-8.

A day after three games were postponed due to rain, four games got postponed last night.

Sammy Solis is pretty happy that Chatham and Wareham decided to play.

Solis, a freshman from San Diego, tossed seven shutout innings to lead Chatham past Wareham 2-0. The 6’4 lefthander allowed just two hits, struck out eight and didn’t walk anybody. It was the second strong start of the summer by Solis, who has two of Chatham’s four wins. For the season, he hasn’t allowed an earned run and he has struck out 16 with just one walk in 12 innings.

Last night, Solis out-dueled another top freshmen. Wareham’s Brandon Workman (Texas), struck out 10 and allowed two runs in five innings. That moved him into the league lead in strikeouts (Solis is second).

Grant Green (USC) delivered all the offense off Workman with a two-run double in the second inning. And that was all the offense Chatham needed. The USC bullpen tandem of Kevin Couture and Brad Boxberger teamed up for three scoreless innings to preserve the win. Boxberger picked up his third save.

I’d say the big news out of yesterday was still Solis. Before the season, he looked like a guy who might emerge — a big, tall freshman, highly-touted out of high school, good college numbers. His potential had me thinking he could be the top freshman pitcher on the Cape. At this rate, you can drop the freshman label. He’s tied for the league lead in wins and ERA, and he’s second in strikeouts. Only Hyannis’ Andrew Carraway has put up similar numbers.

What to Watch For Tonight

• No rain in the forecast — that’s the big one.

• There were only two games originally on the schedule for tonight. Falmouth and Brewster made it three when they pushed last night’s game to tonight.
  

• Keep an eye on box scores. College World Series players should start trickling in this week.