Photo credit: Sam Polgreen
In their third meeting with Wareham of the summer, the Firebirds looked to break a two-game skid with their first win of the summer over the Gatemen.
The game began just as Wareham's previous visit to Eldredge Park did, with a pitching duel between Cody Bowker (Vanderbilt) and Tate McGuire (Arkansas).
The bases didn't see a runner for the first 1 1/2 innings until Dan Bucciero (Fordham) led off the bottom of the second with a first-pitch double. With Bucciero placing himself in scoring position, Landon Moran (Stetson) came up to the plate with one job: moving the runner around the bases, something the Firebirds' offense struggled to do in Sunday's loss to Chatham.
Against the Gatemen, however, Moran did his job, and placed a sac bunt down right in front of home plate that moved Bucciero to third.
After Mike Mancini (Vanderbilt) walked to put runners on the corners for Orleans, the Birds were again unable to capitalize on a scoring opportunity, as an Isaac Wachsmann (Xavier) flyout stranded both Bucciero and Mancini on base.
In the bottom of the third, the Birds once again had runners on the corners after Lorenzo Meola (Stetson) doubled and Ben Zeigler (Hawaii) moved him to third with a ground single.
This time around, the Firebirds capitalized with a runner 90 feet from home, as a Jack Gurevitch (San Diego) fly ball dropped into no-man's-land and brought in Meola, giving the Birds an early 1-0 lead.
Meola became the first Firebird to record a run against McGuire all summer, as the Arkansas product has pitched nearly flawlessly in his three starts against Orleans.
With Bowker's pitch count creeping over 70 after throwing consecutive 1-2-3 innings, the Gatemen began to take advantage of the Vanderbilt product's high pitch count. Back-to-back one-out hits that put both runners in scoring position caused Orleans manager Kelly Nicholson to go to his bullpen before the inning could get away from his team.
Lucas Litteral (Western Kentucky) jogged out of the bullpen to make his sixth Firebirds appearance of the summer, and was instantly met with a Wareham barrage. Sam White (West Virginia), responsible for both runs in Wareham's 2-1 win in its previous visit to Eldredge, quickly brought both base runners home with a line-drive double to the right field wall.
The next hitter Litteral faced, Murph Gray (Fresno State), continued to hold the hot bat for Wareham and gave the Gatemen their third straight double, bringing White home and expanding his team's lead to 3-1.
After the Birds followed Wareham's three-run inning by stranding another runner in scoring position, Litteral went 1-2-3 in the top of the seventh to keep the game within reach for his offense.
The Birds quickly put themselves in prime position to tie the game, if not take the lead, loading the bases with no outs.
Once Hudson Shupe (Gonzaga) singled to load the bases, McGuire's night was over, and Tony Pluta (Arizona) was called out of the bullpen to get the Gatemen out of the no-out, bases-loaded jam.
Pluta promptly recorded two outs, but one of them, a Gurevitch groundout, brought Wachsmann home to bring Orleans within one.
Following Gurevitch's second RBI of the night, the Birds couldn't do any more damage on the basepaths, and a Bucciero groundout stranded two more runners in scoring position.
Gray's solo shot in the top of the eighth gave the Gatemen a two-run cushion and was all Wareham needed to walk away with a win.
The Firebirds will look to improve on bringing their base runners home, as they are now 5-for-32 with runners in scoring position on their two-game skid. They won't have to wait long for some redemption, as they travel to Cotuit for a 5 p.m. battle with the Kettleers on Wednesday.
