The Harwich Mariners picked up their second win of season on a breezy Monday night at Red Wilson Field, narrowly defeating the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox by a score of 3-2. Unlike its first win, against Cotuit on Saturday night, Harwich battled through adversity in the field multiple times to eke out a low-scoring win.
After controlling the lead for much of the game, the Mariners allowed Y-D to scrape back in the bottom of the seventh inning, when Cameron Kim drove in two runs with a base hit to draw the game even at 2-2.
Heading into the top of the eighth, now tied for the first time since the first inning, Harwich manager Steve Englert did something he doesn’t do often: He turned to small ball.
Harwich left fielder Matt Scannell (Princeton) walked to start the inning, and rather than let the bats fly like he typically does, Englert gave Jake Ogden (UNC Greensboro) the bunt signal. Ogden laid down a good bunt and did his job to advance the runner, and just like that, the Mariners had the winning run standing 180 feet from home.
A wild pitch in the next at-bat allowed Scannell to scamper to third base, still with just one out in the inning. Macon Winslow (Duke) then had just one job, and that was to put the ball in play.
He grounded out to second, but Scannell made a good read and was able to safely trot home to score what ended up being the winning run for the Mariners.
“Went to the small-ball game, which I don’t do often, but in that situation, I wanted to win this one,” Englert said.
Cam Maldonado (Northeastern) and Danny Dickinson (Utah Valley) drove in the first two Harwich runs, which gave starter Ryan DeSanto (St. Joseph’s) plenty of breathing room in his first Cape Cod Baseball League start.
DeSanto went 4 2/3 for Harwich but kept the Red Sox out of the hit column through his first four innings of work.
“Pounding the strike zone, changing up his speeds, moving the ball in and out and kept them off balance,” Englert said. “He was tremendous.”
“That was a typical Cape League game right there,” Englert said of the low-scoring affair. “We pitched great, we had great starting pitching, relief came in and did a great job. We got a couple of knocks when we needed it.”
Harwich moved to 2-1 on the season with the win and will be back at home Tuesday night against Bourne as it looks for its first home win of the season. First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. at Whitehouse Field.
