Ask anyone how to score in baseball, and the answer will be ‘get hits and turn them into runs’. But what if neither team in the game can accumulate a ton of hits? Well, in that case the team that gets the most free passes (walks, hit-by-pitches, reached on errors) will often win the game. In Cotuit’s 5-4 loss to Orleans Sunday night, they lost the free pass battle by a total of 12-6.

Nowhere was this more apparent than the bottom of the fourth inning. Picher Alex Sotiropoulos (Columbia) was on a roll for the Kettleers, having struck out six batters and given up just one earned run in the first three innings. But, the Firebirds’ got a baserunner to reach on a simple fielding error by shortstop Dayton Murphy (Purdue). All of a sudden, Sotiropoulos’ momentum was gone.

The Firebird fans noticed, and started to become a presence in the game. He then walked a batter, pushing one into scoring position. Sotiropoulos was then pulled from the game. The Orleans now was loud as it realized their team had a real chance to bust the game open.

Enter relief pitcher Tyler Brashear (Eckerd), and the free passes continued. First, a wild pitch that moved both runners over. Then, consecutive hit-by-pitches of Dominic Cadiz (UCLA) and Elijah Ickes (Hawaii) scored a runner. Pressure at Eldredge Park was at a high, and pitches just could not locate the strike zone. Throw in another walk, and the Firebirds had suddenly turned a 1-0 lead into 3-0 without recording a single hit.

“When you give good teams with good players extra opportunities like we did in that inning, they will take advantage of it,” Coach Rob Cooper said. “We have to do everything we can to make them truly earn their runs.”

The Kettlers would fight back and add a run in the top of the seventh, but the bottom of the seventh saw free passes come back to bite them even more. A walk and a hit-by-pitch put two batters on for Bub Terrell (Auburn), who loaded the bases when he forced Cotuit to misplay his bunt for a single. When Jeremy Sheffield (Georgetown) was then hit by Brashear, the Firebirds had themselves their third run of the game from a free pass. As the sun set behind Nauset Regional Middle School, so did the Kettleers’ chances of winning the game. While they did tie the game back up in the eighth inning, it was not enough to avoid the eventual defeat.

Another factor to consider into why the Kettleers lost the game is strikeouts. After all, a batter cannot get a hit unless they are able to put the ball in play. Cotuit was seemingly mystified by the pitches of LJ Cormier (Auburn) and Andrew Cutler (George Washington). The Kettleers struck out 10 times in the first five innings of the game, and had a total of 15. This prevented what runners they got on base from advancing and generating pressure on the opposing pitching staff.

The trends on these stats speak for themselves. In each of Cotuit’s wins they had fewer strikeouts than their opponent, and in two out of their three wins they drew more walks. In their four losses, they lost the walk battle three times and the strikeout battle three times. These have even been more predictive than the hit battle in Kettleer games, an example of which being tonight when Cotuit won the hit battle 8-5 but still dropped the game.

Now, the season is still young and the mistakes made by Cotuit Sunday are very fixable as the season goes on. However, as long as free passes and strikeouts continue to be a problem for the Kettleers, winning will be exponentially harder.

“If we can just clean up some of the errors and free passes we can win a lot more games…” Cooper said. “We just have to be better there.”