WAREHAM, Mass. — Falmouth has seemed to figure out how to hit homers. Just six games in, it sat first in the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) with eight long balls, double the next closest team.
The problem? The Commodores still haven’t fully put things together on offense. They entered their matchup with Wareham Saturday seventh in the CCBL with a .194 average and fifth with a .645 OPS.
Falmouth has had flashes of brilliance with 21 combined runs in its two wins over Orleans. But it also hit poorly in its three losses before Saturday. If the ‘Dores want to win more games, they need to do more than just hit homers.
Instead, the opposite happened. Falmouth (3-4) fell to Wareham (4-3) 4-1 Saturday. With their power gone, the Commodores couldn’t get anything going offensively, mustering just three hits. Meanwhile, starter TJ Coats went just two innings, giving up four runs in the second inning alone. With the ‘Dores’ offensive struggles, the surge was all Wareham needed to pull out the win.
“It’s a game. You’ve gotta play the game,” manager Jarrod Saltalamacchia said postgame. “I felt like we didn’t really make adjustments off the starter. We really never put ourself in a good position.”
Falmouth’s offense was nowhere to be found Friday. Part of that was Wareham starter Chase Richter (Arkansas State).
Similar to Orleans’ Owen Kelly on Friday, Richter fanned the red hot Maika Niu and Antonio Morales in a 1-2-3 first. He cooled down in the second, allowing two baserunners, but he escaped by striking out David McCann.
Other days, that wouldn’t have been an immediate issue. Falmouth’s starters have been exceptional in the first six games, with all allowing two or fewer runs.
Coats (Nebraska/transfer portal) started for the second time this season after tossing five scoreless innings versus Harwich earlier in the campaign. Then, he said his slider and curveball were in harmony.
But nothing seemed to be working Saturday. After beginning his outing with a six-pitch first, he was hit hard for the first time with Falmouth. Following back-to-back two-out walks in the second, Kentucky’s Kyuss Gargett smacked a fastball into the left-center-field gap. Gargett ended up with a triple as both runners scored.
Wareham wasn’t done. Brayden Randle (Ole Miss) notched his team-leading fourth RBI of the season by driving in Gargett with a single. Kollin Ritchie (Oklahoma State) then did the same.
Just like that, Falmouth was down 4-0. For the first time this season, its starting pitching had let it down. And that was the end of Coats’ day. He gave up three hits and three walks in just two innings and was replaced by Trever Baumler (TCU) in the third.
On the other side, Richter wouldn’t let up. He again dispatched Falmouth’s top of the order in the third, inducing a Niu double play and another Morales strikeout. He then upped his strikeout count to seven by striking out the side in the fourth.
To his credit, Baumler kept the Gatemen’s lead at four. He posted his second straight strong appearance after a three-inning, no-run outing versus Brewster on Sunday. Despite Ty Dalley greeting him with a blistering single, Baumler rebounded with three quick outs. The fourth and fifth followed the same script, as he allowed just two hits and struck out two.
Falmouth finally started making progress offensively in the fifth. Landon Moran advanced to second after a hit by pitch while Carl Schmidt worked a two-out walk, knocking Richter out of the game. But reliever Kaleb Applebey, coming off a 3.50 ERA at Austin Peay, got Niu to pop out to keep the ‘Dores off the board.
The Commodores finally turned that traffic into a run in the sixth. But they still squandered a major opportunity to add more. After a Morales walk and Osterhouse single, Kyle Morrison made it 4-1 with an RBI groundout to third. Bear Harrison and Ben Royo followed with two straight outs, limiting the damage to one run.
Falmouth’s bullpen continued to do its job. Despite the Gatemen forcing Baumler out of the game in the sixth, LSU’s Deven Sheerin buckled Randle to keep Wareham off the board. Sheerin took that in stride into the seventh and eighth, using his upper-90s fastball to notch four strikeouts and not allow a baserunner over 2.1 innings.
But Baumler and Sheerin could only do so much. The ‘Dores’ offense returned to its earlier form when it mattered the most versus Wareham. Applebey, in his third inning of work in the seventh, induced three weak outs to the bottom of Falmouth’s order.
Even the top of the order couldn’t do anything. Abblebey and Patrick Galle took charge in the eighth and ninth, stifling a brief Falmouth rally in the waning moments.
Nearly everything went wrong for Falmouth on Saturday. But it’s hard to win games when your offense can’t hit a lick. That’s what happened to the Commodores Saturday, leading to their fourth loss of the season.
“If those guys go out and just give good at-bats, good approaches, I’m happy,” Saltalamacchia said. “It’s a baseball game. Not too many big league games are you gonna find guys going out there consistently and putting 10 runs up.”
Noah Nussbaum is the beat reporter for the Falmouth Commodores. You can read all of his articles on the Commodores here.
