Falmouth’s (6-9-1) losing streak grew to four in a seven-run loss to Yarmouth-Dennis (14-1-1).
However, the final doesn’t tell the full story of Wednesday’s contest – a game that was tightly contested before a fifth inning mudslide.
Brayden Bergman (transfer portal) got the ball for the ‘Dores on Wednesday and came out dealing in his three inning start. After loading the bases with a pair of walks and a hit batsman, he’d punch out Cole Hansen (Cal Baptist) to squirm his way out of the first inning jam.
Bergman tossed a hitless three innings, striking out four – something that the Falmouth pitching staff desperately needed, according to pitching coach Paul Evans.
“He showed a pretty good breaking ball and mixed in some decent changeups,” he said. “He gave us three scoreless, and that was something that we needed, because we haven't been getting that from our starters.”
Danny Nelson (Clemson) turned in a great start in his own right, keeping Falmouth off the board through the first four frames. The Commodores were able to poke a quartet of base hits in that time frame.
The fifth inning was a scoring explosion for Y-D: an inning that included a three-run home run from Brock Ketelsen (Stanford), a pair of RBI walks drawn by Ty Mainolfi (Boston College) and Lucas Franco (TCU) and a two-run single off the bat of John Beverly (Auburn) gave the Red Sox a 7-0 lead, and they’d never look back.
Coach Evans was particularly bothered by the Ketelsen homer, saying “ the home run was an 0-2 pitch. It was a mistake: a hanging slider that got up out of here…That's about the fourth or fifth time we've made some mistakes on 0-2 pitches that have cost us some runs.”
The Commodores’ only run of the contest came in the bottom half of the fifth, as Anthony Diaz (Missouri) roped a single to start a brief Falmouth rally. Pearson Riebock (Baylor) walked to move him to scoring position and set up Brayden Jefferis (Michigan) for an RBI single – his second RBI in as many games.
For Diaz, the multi-hit effort was a byproduct of a shift in his preparation, saying “I upped the intensity of [my] preparation, making batting practice more game-like so I can just go in the game and trust it, knowing that I prepared as best as I could.”
The No. 1 staff on the Cape tossed a clean four innings to after the fifth, while Franco tacked on one more with an RBI double in the top of the ninth to put an exclamation point on the 8-1 win.
The Commodores take their fourth straight loss and fall to third in the West Division, but still only two points back of first-place Bourne. It’s a tight playoff race in its early stages and Falmouth has time to turn it around in the coming weeks. It’ll start on Friday in the first of its annual two-game series against Cotuit on Fourth of July weekend.
