In what was the longest game of the season, a defensive miscue and bloop single gave new life for the Mariners against the Falmouth Commodores at Whitehouse Field.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Dee Kennedy hit a pop-up to right field. Harwich had two men on the corners in what should have been an easy catch to end the threat. Falmouth right fielder Chris Newstrom sprinted in toward the infield and overran his spot, allowing the ball to drop in for a hit. Maddox Molony scored from second to cut the deficit to 7-6.
The next batter, Matt Conte, tied the game on a bloop single that dropped between Newstrom and second baseman Justin Osterhouse. Now 7-7 the Mariners had new life as the game went into extra innings.
Unfortunately for the Mariners, Falmouth got the last laugh. David McCann’s two-run home run in the top of the tenth inning off Cooper Harrington clinched the 9-8 win for the Commodores. Thanks to a weather delay that lasted over an hour, the game didn’t finish until after 11 p.m.
With games typically going three hours or less, going almost four hours pushed both teams to stay engaged.
“It’s tough. Nobody really expects us to go out there and have to play,” Aiden Robbins said. But when we got the call, we tried to focus up and really hone in what we had to get done. We put in a long hard fight.”
It was an uncharacteristic night for the Mariner pitching staff, giving up 13 hits.
In his first start of the summer, Freddy Rodriguez was spectacular against the Falmouth Commodores. Four scoreless innings, allowing just three base runners, the Mariners could not have asked for more.
The second time around against the Commodores did not go as well.
After giving up a lead-off double to Carl Schmidt, Rodriguez gave up an RBI-single to Maika Niu to give Falmouth the early lead.
Rodriguez ran into trouble again in the third. Falmouth tagged him for five hits in the inning, leading to three runs and taking the 4-3 lead.
When field manager Steve Englert walked out to pull Rodriguez, there was just one out with two guys in scoring position.
Reliever Olin Johnson came in and prevented any more damage in third. After cruising through the fourth, he ran into trouble in the fifth. Falmouth opened the inning with two base hits to put men on the corners with no outs.
With the thundering clouds rolling in, Kent Schmidt stole second, drawing a throw from Conte. Standing at third, Niu broke for home and slid in easily to give Falmouth the 5-4 lead before the storm rolled in.
First inning fireworks
Harwich wasted no time putting runs on the board.
The first four Mariners reached base with Molony getting an RBI single to tie the game at one. Harwich tacked on two more runs thanks to sacrifice flies by Kyle Wolff and Conte.
While the Mariner offense has started to perform in the past week, the team still struggled to jump on starting pitching.
Coming into the game, the Mariners had only scored six runs in the first inning, all of which came on opening night.
Coming back from the break
After the game was paused due to thunderstorms, both teams had to kill over an hour before play resumed. While Falmouth tossed a frisbee in the outfield, a couple Mariners took over the broadcast
When play resumed, Falmouth immediately added another run after Tom Chmielewski attempted to pick off Ashton Wilson at first base. Wilson managed to stay alive long enough to allow Schmidt to score from third, taking a 6-3 lead halfway through the fifth inning.
The Mariners got a boost with home runs in back-to-back innings from Niko Brini and Robbins to push the score 7-5 going into the eighth.
“I didn’t really see [the pitch] too well,” Robbins said. “But I got my barrel out in front of it and just gave it some nice backspin to get out.”
Englert tossed
Englert got thrown out of a game for the first time this season. He came out of the dugout in the bottom of the ninth inning after Tanner Marsh got picked off by McCann from behind the plate.
First base umpire Martin Hasenfuss called Marsh out on the close play, causing Englert to burst from the dugout steps.
Moving Forward
The Mariners make their second and final trip to Bourne tomorrow. Luke McNeillie will make his fourth start of the summer. First pitch is at 6:00 p.m.
