Harwich and Phillip Ervin have taken a lot of the headlines in the Cape Cod Baseball League this season. Chicks dig the long ball, and apparently so do Cape League fans.
But this is shaping up to be a very offensive summer, and it’s not all because of Ervin and his crew with the Mariners. We shouldn’t lose sight of the other stand-outs.
Robert Pehl and the Y-D Red Sox are at the top of that list.
Pehl went 2-for-3 last night and got on base to start two rallies as the Red Sox beat Orleans 11-10. Pehl is now hitting a league-best .447 with 13 RBI, and the Red Sox have a league-best .318 team batting average. The next closest teams are Harwich and Falmouth at .274.
The Red Sox haven’t quite hit their stride as a total unit yet. Despite having the fourth-best team ERA to go with the best batting average, they’re only one game over .500.
But they’re dangerous, and Pehl has been most dangerous of all.
Undrafted out of high school, Pehl just finished his freshman year at Washington, where he hit .293. He’s been on the Cape since the first day of the season, when he went 1-for-4, and he hasn’t slowed down. While everyone else’s averages have slowly trickled down into the reasonable range as we’ve gotten deeper into the season, Pehl’s has remained in the unreasonable range. He’s hit in five straight games, and four of those have been multi-hit performances.
When a player — and a team — hit that much, they’re not easy to put away, and the Firebirds found that out last night. Orleans, coming off the streak-busting loss to Harwich, seemed to be putting the Red Sox away when Conrad Gregor (Vanderbilt) hit a grand slam in the seventh to put the Firebirds on top 10-7.
But Pehl led off the bottom of the inning with a single and came around on a Sam Travis (Indiana) base hit. The Red Sox added another run in the eighth on a home run by Zak Blair (Mercyhurst).
Then in the ninth, with Orleans lights-out closer Trevor Gott (Kentucky) on the mound, the Red Sox kept swinging. Pehl walked, Alex Blandino (Stanford) singled and Travis brought pinch runner Tyler Sciacca (Villanova) home with a base hit. After a walk, Blandino raced home on a sacrifice fly by Blair to score the winning run.
The runs were the first ones Gott has allowed this season, and the blown save was just the second of his stellar two-year career. Interestingly, the only other blown save came in last year’s playoffs, in another 11-10 loss to Y-D.
The Red Sox finished with 14 hits, and six players had two each. Blair had four RBI, while Blandino and Travis had two apiece.
Elsewhere
What to Watch
Harwich and Hyannis are at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of standings, but with Sean Manaea (Indiana State) on the mound for the Harbor Hawks, it should be a good match-up. Manaea has a 2.19 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 12.1 innings. Eddie Campbell (Virginia Tech) is scheduled to start for Harwich. The game is in Hyannis at 7 p.m.
I was at the game in Falmouth last night and watched as Falmouth’s (St. John’s )LHP Sean Hagan flirted with a no hitter for 5 innings. The atmosphere was electric and Hagan had the entire Chatam team off balance all night. Great performance!
Nice. Thanks for the info. Definitely one of the best performances of the season so far.