BOURNE, Mass. — The Brewster Whitecaps were pulling at every straw they could to try to stay alive.

After their third error in a two-inning span — a wild throw from left fielder Terrence Kiel II (Texas A&M) that got away from third baseman Jake Lambdin (Duke) — allowed the Bourne Braves to score the game's tying run with one out in the ninth inning and put runners on second and third, Whitecaps manager Jamie Shevchik had to get creative.

He called for the intentional walk of the Braves' five-hole hitter, third baseman Trent Caraway (transfer portal), loading the bases and creating a force out at home plate. Defensively, he shifted second baseman Pete Daniel (Virginia Tech) to the left side of the diamond and brought right fielder Jay Abernathy (Oklahoma) into the infield, positioning him where the second baseman would traditionally play. To cap it off, the five-man crew was pulled in and onto the grass.

Unfortunately for Shevchik and the Whitecaps, the Braves didn’t fall into the trap.

Bourne (5-3-3) center fielder John Stuetzer (Florida State) sent the first offering he saw from Brewster (6-5) right-handed reliever Jordan Martin (Arkansas) out to his counterpart, Michael Torres (Miami). Torres was able to camp underneath the fly ball and unleashed a throw toward the plate, but Braves left fielder Matt Bolton beat it, handing the Whitecaps a 6-5 walk-off loss, as the Doran Park faithful erupted into a Friday night frenzy.

“That’s a tough spot to put a pitcher in; when you’re out there battling and your defense kind of lets you down,” Shevchik said. “(It) just didn’t go (Jordan Martin’s) way. He battled out there, and they beat us.”

The ninth was when Brewster officially got beaten, but the wheels started to fall off the bus an inning prior.

The Whitecaps entered the eighth with a 4-1 lead and RHP Zach Kmatz (Oregon State) on the mound. While the righty wasn’t perfect, it was a cascade of bad luck, rather than poor pitching, that brought the Braves back into play.

Kmatz was immediately greeted by a bloop single off the bat of shortstop Rustan Rigdon (Vanderbilt), putting the leadoff man on and setting the stage for disaster.

And disaster did indeed strike.

Kmatz induced a potential double play ball off the bat of Bourne catcher Andrew Costello, but Daniel wasn’t able to corral Lambdin’s throw from third, putting runners on the corners instead of gaining two outs.

Three pitches later, Bolton sent a ball on the ground toward shortstop Jamie Laskofski (North Carolina). Instead of charging toward the ball, Laskofski played it deep in the hole and was forced to rush a throw to second, pulling Daniel off the bag.

“I thought that ball was going to get on me a little harder,” Laskofski said. “I sat back on it, I wish I would’ve charged a little more, give me a little more time — I think even if I made a good throw there he’s probably safe just because I waited on it too long.”

Rigdon scored on the error, and while Kmatz bounced back with a flyout and a strikeout, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Costello, who would’ve been out if Laskofski played Bolton’s grounder differently, scored on a single before the inning-ending fielder’s choice.

Kmatz entered the game with a 3.86 ERA, and despite lowering it to a 3.48 mark, he exited with Bourne knocking on the door thanks to a pair of unearned runs.

“Kmatz could’ve been, should’ve been, out of that inning in the eighth clean with no runs and pitching in the ninth,” Shevchik said. “Because that was such a long inning and a high-pressure inning, I didn’t want to send him back out there.”

Enter Martin.

The Whitecaps managed to score him an insurance run in the top half of the ninth after Abernathy singled and scored on a tapper in front of the plate off the bat of Torres, but it wasn’t enough to ward off the implosion.

Martin hit the first batter he faced in the helmet, allowed a walk and the fateful single that resulted in Kiel’s throwing error that tied the game before it all ended.

The way in which Brewster ended up losing was an ironic turn of events, as it was taking advantage of Bourne’s mistakes that propelled it to its temporary lead.

“It feels like that’s the way we’ve been scoring most of our runs for the season,” Shevchik said. “When you can’t take care of the baseball, and we didn’t today … we just couldn’t recover from that.”

The Whitecaps broke the game’s 1-1 tie in the sixth inning when Laskofski reached second on a bunt single and an error, and then motored past third to score on a passed ball that caromed off Costello’s leg.

“On plays like that, where there’s a chance you can get two bases, you just always got to think in your head you’re going to get two bases,” Laskofski said. “Think aggressive and play aggressive and it’s going to lead to better outcomes for you.”

In the seventh, Brewster added two more after a two-out throwing error from Caraway allowed Lambdin to score and Kiel, who reached on the error, to come around on a Laskofski single.

Out of the five runs the Whitecaps scored, only two were earned, the aforementioned Torres RBI in the ninth, and a home run off the bat of first baseman Dane Harvey (Ohio State) — his second of the year — in the fourth inning against Braves right-handed starter Jaden Alba (Arizona State).

Alba carved up Brewster’s lineup, going five strong with only three hits and two walks, while striking out six. The Whitecaps starter, southpaw Charlie West (UConn), nearly matched Alba, going 4.2 innings with one hit, three walks, one earned run and nine strikeouts.

West’s start made him the third Brewster pitcher in a row to go four or more innings with one run or less given up. Counterintuitively, the team is 1-2 during the stretch, but that’s what can happen when mistakes continue to rear their ugly head.

“Our starting pitching has been great, and I’m not going to put the pressure on the bullpen. I’m not calling that shot yet,” Shevchik said. “Today was about us not taking care of the baseball defensively. We gave them some life, and that’s how they got back into it.”