ORLEANS, Mass. — The more things change, the more they stay the same.

On June 15, the Brewster Whitecaps' third gameday of the summer, they made the trip to Eldredge Park to take on the Orleans Firebirds. Proceedings didn’t go the Whitecaps' way that night, winding up with a 9-1 loss, their second.

The 42 days that followed featured many more ups than downs for Brewster, only adding six more losses to their tally. Over that span, however, the team never once returned to Eldredge Park.

It took 43 days since the two teams' first meeting at the venue to meet there again, and despite the Whitecaps entering the matchup with more than double the Firebirds' win total, the result was similar enough to their first go-around.

Brewster (24-9-3) dropped their second and final game at Orleans' (12-23) home field on Tuesday night in a high-scoring 15-8 beatdown. The Whitecaps fell behind early, but showed fight, pulling within one run of the Firebirds in the top of the fourth inning. From that point forward, though, every time Brewster scored, Orleans responded and eventually pulled away.

“It was frustrating,” Whitecaps manager Jamie Shevchik said. “Anytime you score eight runs in any baseball game out here in the Cape, you expect to win. We got our worst game out of the way; it’s not like you’re going to be perfect in this league, you’re going to make mistakes. … hopefully these guys get a chance to see how this one stings, and then see how they react tomorrow.”

Brewster right-handed starter Otto Espinoza (Florida State) — who was making his first appearance in that role after 3.2 innings of relief across two outings — handed Orleans two runs in the first inning on two singles, a walk, a hit-by-pitch and a wild pitch. The frame could’ve gotten even more out of hand if not for left fielder Adam Haight (Oregon State) gunning out a runner at home plate.

In the fourth inning, it was the defense that struggled, as third baseman Holden Pantier (Georgia Tech) committed a throwing error that helped two of the three runs the Firebirds scored in the frame cross the plate.

“We just made too many errors early on,” Shevchik said. “When you give up a five spot, and you’re down five-nothing because we couldn’t take care of the baseball. There was a couple of walks mixed in there, hit batsmen; we just made way too many mistakes. Too many mistakes that you can’t recover from.”

Despite Shevchik’s diagnosis, his offense did its best to make the recovery attempt, scoring four runs in the top of the fifth to make it a 5-4 game.

The Whitecaps even had a chance to take the lead, as Pantier stepped up to the plate with the tying run on third base and the go-ahead run on second. Unfortunately for the team, he struck out looking, ending their threat.

“We get a base hit right there, and they’re down a run, who knows?” Shevchik asked rhetorically. “A team like that can fold. A team that’s basically holding on for their lives. We just didn’t come up with the biggest hit when we needed it.”

With its edge still intact, Orleans was able to respond with a five-spot, and any momentum Brewster tried to muster up by scoring two runs in the sixth and seventh was completely nullified by Orleans scoring one, one and three in the sixth, seventh and eighth.

In the end, the Whitecaps used five pitchers who gave up a combined 12 earned runs — an eight-inning error from shortstop Will Baker (Georgia Tech) brought in a third unearned run — on 14 hits and seven walks.

The 12 earned runs were the most the pitching staff has given up on the season, beating out the eight they were tagged with in their first time at Eldredge Park. With playoffs right around the corner, the Whitecaps will need to move past the combined performance quickly and get back to the type of outings that helped the team enter Tuesday with the second-lowest ERA in the CCBL (3.10).

“When you have outings like we’ve had tonight, it’s just (about) getting back up as soon as you can,” Whitecaps pitching coach Brian Del Rosso said. “The recovery piece is really important. When guys don’t have necessarily the best outings, it’s important for us to get them back up on the mound as soon as possible.”

First baseman Dane Harvey (Ohio State), who went 3-for-4 while hitting his fourth home run of the summer and driving in three runs, said he’s “not too worried” about the pitching staff bouncing back, having firsthand experience watching them throughout the season.

He’s also not willing to use the pitching staff's statistically worst game of the summer as an excuse for Brewster coming out on the losing end.

“Our goal as hitters: our pitchers give up one, we score two. They give up 20, we score 21,” Harvey said. “It’s a tough game, the pitchers aren't going to have their stuff every day, but we came in and we tried to battle.”

Harvey was arguably the best-performing Whitecap on Tuesday, but catcher Owen Jenkins (Texas Tech) did his best to match him, launching his first home run of the season immediately following the first baseman’s blast in the sixth inning.

Center fielder Michael Torres (Miami) almost made it back-to-back-to-back home runs for Brewster, muscling a 1-0 pitch 346 feet into the right-center gap — the furthest distance of any of the three batted balls — that was tracked down by Orleans right fielder Garrett Larsen (Yale).

It would’ve been a picturesque moment if Torres’ flyout had carried just a little further, as Tuesday represented his and Jenkins' last game as a member of the Whitecaps. And as much as their departures are a loss to the team, they’re an emotional experience for the players themselves.

“It kind of sucks,” Torres said. “We ended on a loss, but I’m not worried about this team, we always bounce back, and we always find a way to win. It’s kind of sad, but I trust these guys, I know they’re going to bring it (the championship) home to Brewster.”

Both players had integral roles on the team throughout their time in Brewster, with Torres posting a .725 OPS as the everyday center fielder and Jenkins posting a .781 OPS while splitting time behind the plate with Jacob Lee (Virginia Commonwealth).

Without Torres and Jenkins, Shevchik will be relying on Lee and his .908 OPS more than ever, while also turning to Tryston McCladdie (Clemson), who’s only made seven appearances after debuting on July 20, to man center field.

“It’s going to be hard to replace those guys, but we’ve got some guys that are very capable of doing so,” Shevchik said.

Losing two key contributors, as well as suffering one of, if not the worst, losses of the season might concern some managers, but Shevchik isn’t one of them.

He fully expects the team to bounce back, knowing that Tuesday isn’t representative of how they’ve played throughout the season.

He fully expects players entering bigger roles to step up.

He fully expects that sitting just two points behind the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox — who lost on Tuesday to the Harwich Mariners, 8-3 — for the first spot in the East Division will motivate his players to find the next gear.

“We’re still chasing, we’re still close,” Shevchik said. “We play Y-D, we still have a shot. The ultimate goal — step one was to get in the playoffs, step two is to try and win the division, and then step three is to get into the playoffs and try to win the championship. Everything that we're still fighting for is right there in front of us.”