Six-hundred eighty-one days later, the Cotuit Kettleers returned to Lowell Park on Sunday.
And they won again.
It was Aug. 9, 2019 when the Kettleers won the Cape Cod Baseball League championship. On that picture perfect summer evening, no one had any idea that the title clincher would be the last Cape League game for nearly two years.
With the 2020 season canceled due to the pandemic, Cape League diamonds were oddly quiet last summer. It was especially jarring at Lowell Park, considering the cheers that had gone up in the 2019 title series. Kettleers volunteers opened the merchandise stand on a few Saturdays. People came just to reconnect with their home field. I did a book a signing for Summer Baseball Nation on one of those Saturdays. It was fun but it was hard to escape the weirdness of it all.
The new contrast on Sunday was much more welcome. The fans were back, and the Kettleers were, too, picking up where they left off as the rare two-year reigning champions.
Cotuit scored three runs in the second inning and stayed in front of Wareham throughout in an 8-5 win. Eric Brown (Coastal Carolina), coming off a spring in which he hit nine home runs, delivered the biggest blow with a three-run blast. Last year’s Futures League MVP Ben Rice (Dartmouth) went 2-for-3 with two RBI.
Six different pitchers took the mound for the Kettleers. Andre Granillo (UC Riverside) had the best showing, with five strikeouts across three scoreless innings.
Wareham was led by Alabama slugger Owen Diodati, who went 2-for-4 with a home run.
But this day belonged to the Kettleers and the fans at Lowell Park.
It was good to be back.
Bourne 3, Hyannis 0
Bourne had the best pitching performance of opening day with a shutout of Hyannis. Three pitchers combined on the shutout. Gordon Graceffo (Villanova) struck out five in four innings. Nick Zwack (Xavier) fanned six and allowed just one hit in his four innings. Eric Adler (Wake Forest) allowed two hits in the ninth but struck out three to finish it off. The Braves also hit two home runs, Braylen Wimmer (South Carolina) and Dalton Rushing (Louisville) doing the honors.
Orleans 8, Harwich 1
It feels like the Firebirds are loaded this summer, especially in terms of who is already in town, and they cruised to a win over Harwich at a packed Eldredge Park. Chase DeLauter, who hit .386 for James Madison this spring, went 2-for-3 with a home run and three RBI. Baylor star Jared McKenzie was 2-for-4, and Texas Tech All-American Jace Jung had an RBI. Coming off a solid season with Georgia, 6-foot-6 righty Jonathan Cannon struck out two in four scoreless innings. College teammate Michael Polk kept it going with two scoreless innings and Carter Smith (BYU) did the same. Nick Wallerstedt (Arizona State) allowed one run in the ninth but finished off the win. Harwich had Nick Sinacola (Maine) – one of the nation’s strikeout leaders – on the hill to start. He fanned four and allowed two runs.
Y-D 5, Brewster 5
One of the rule changes for this summer is no extra innings, and opening day gave us not one, but two ties. In this one, the Whitecaps led 4-1 in the eighth and 5-3 in the ninth, but the Red Sox rallied twice. Andrew Compton (Georgia Tech) led the first rally with a two-run single in the eighth. Pascanel Ferreras (Western Carolina) delivered a game-tying two-run base hit in the ninth. In addition to the heroics, Y-D got a big day from highly touted shortstop Brooks Lee (Cal Poly), who went 4-for-5. Cooper Weiss (Coastal Carolina) homered for Brewster and Will Simpson (Washington) went 3-for-4.
Chatham 7, Falmouth 7
It was Chatham delivering a ninth-inning rally to force the other tie. The Anglers trailed by one in the top half when the latest Georgia Tech catching star, Kevin Parada, delivered an RBI single that tied the game. In his third inning of work, Andrew Yancik of D-2 McKendree University in Illinois kept Falmouth off the board in the bottom half to preserve the draw. Chatham’s offense was led by Michael Curialle (UCLA) with two hits and two RBI. For Falmouth, Lyle Miller-Green (George Mason) homered and drove in two as part of a 3-for-4 night.
WHAT TO WATCH
Day two brings a few rivalry matchups with Cotuit visiting Hyannis and Orleans heading to Chatham.
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