Aggressive baserunning and a strong, long-relief performance gave the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox a 4-1 win against the Chatham Anglers on Tuesday, improving to a 4-0 record.

The Red Sox’s bats stayed quiet until the sixth inning.

This was a change of pace from their previous high-scoring games, defined by early big hits and consistent contact.

Without any insurance runs, Y-D’s defense needed to thrive to mitigate the chance of a Chatham lead. In the bottom of the third, after silence from Y-D’s offense, a steal by Chatham’s Rett Johnson and an overthrow by Y-D catcher Mateo Serna gave the Anglers a runner on third.

Johnson scored on a fly ball, giving Chatham a 1-0 lead before the Red Sox got out of the inning.

The next inning, right-handed reliever Peyton Rodgers (University of California-Irvine) entered the game. He replaced right-hander Peter Dubie (Brown University), who recorded two hits, one run with zero earned, three walks, and one strikeout, all over three innings.

Y-D was losing, and the bats had been silent until that point, so Rodgers needed to hold the A’s offense.

He accomplished the mission.

Over 4 and ⅓ innings, Rodgers threw 46 pitches and allowed no runs, two hits, and only two walks with three strikeouts in his second and longest outing for Y-D this season.

Rodgers was pleased with his performance and the command he had of his pitches.

“Felt really good,” said Rodgers. “Just used all the pitches. [It] worked well.”

He leaned mostly on his slider, two-seam, and four-seam fastballs.

“Honestly, today, I would say the slider is working the best, but the two-seam was definitely working almost as well,” said Rodgers.

In the sixth inning, Rodgers walked one batter with only one out. Nonetheless, he stayed calm and left the inning scoreless.

Rodger broke down his thought process in tense situations like this one, which, above all else, involves taking advantage of every second on the pitch clock.

“As soon as I step on the rubber, I take a big breath because you get 20 seconds,” Rodgers said. “[I] just try and visualize, full confidence, pitch, like everything I got behind it.”

On the offensive end, Y-D struggled against Chatham’s right-handed starter Angel Cervantes (University of California, Los Angeles), as they only recorded two baserunners in the first six innings.

Over five innings, Cervantes recorded no hits or runs with six strikeouts, and only two walks—both of which were taken by Serna in the second and fifth innings.

In the sixth, when Cervantes was replaced by Chatham right-hander Oisin Lee (Notre Dame), Y-D’s silence at the plate morphed into a productive chaos. Y-D’s Phoenix Call (University of California, Los Angeles) singled on a ground ball to short, beating out the throw.

Call, putting his wheels to use again, stole second and advanced to third on an Ethan Ball (Virginia Tech) single to left field.

Lee then threw a wild pitch that advanced Ball to second and allowed Call to score, tying the game at 1-1.

With Ball on second, Brodie Johnston (Vanderbilt University) walked. Then, Ball stole third before coming home on a wild pitch a few seconds later. This put Y-D ahead 2-1.

Jake Souders (Mississippi State) followed with an RBI base hit to center field that scuffed the second-baseman’s glove in an attempted diving catch, and knocked in Johnston to put Y-D ahead 3-1.

In the top of the seventh, Ball was hit by a pitch to walk in a run to make the final 4-1 score.

Y-D will fight to stay as the only undefeated team in the CCBL this Thursday at 6:00pm EST at Wareham.