On a night where the pitching dazzled a home crowd at Spillane Field, it was the bats who took center stage on Tuesday night to grab the Gatemen’s third straight victory – all to begin a three-game home stand.
In an 8-2 rout of the Chatham Anglers (10-10), the Wareham Gatemen (14-5-1) added three more extra-base hits to a league-leading 67 as a squad on the year. Sam White (West Virginia) starred with a 2-for-2, five RBI performance with two walks on the afternoon, including a third-inning grand slam. Antonio Jimenez (University of Central Florida) joined the home run parade with a solo shot in the sixth inning.
The Anglers’ offense had no response, with five Gatemen arms producing a two-run, seven-strikeout game in an all-around Gatemen effort to begin their longest home stand of the season.
Now that Wareham has taken 2-1 control over their summer series with Chatham, they will look to do the same against the one team nipping at their heels in the West Division on Wednesday: The Cotuit Kettleers. Cotuit (12-8) sits 2.5 games behind the Gatemen as the second-place team in the West.
The two intradivisional foes are 1-1 when meeting one another in 2024, with Cotuit taking their most recent meeting, 4-2, eight games ago on June 29. The CCBL’s second-worst defense pleaded guilty for the loss that afternoon, with Wareham gifting the Kettleers two unearned runs because of three errors in the loss at Lowell Park.
Starting Pitching
Wareham’s Tate McGuire (Arkansas) will take the mound first in a battle of two top-five pitching staffs.
The 6-foot, 190-pound right-hander will toe the rubber for the fourth time this summer, looking for a bounce-back outing after allowing his first earned runs of the season July 3 versus Bourne.
McGuire entered the contest having no earned runs to his ledger, before totaling 3 2/3 innings on two earned runs, and three strikeouts in the 8-6 win.
Despite the underwhelming outing, McGuire does maintain a 1.38 ERA in 13 innings – good for fourth in the league. While holding opposing offenses to a .170 average, he also has a team-best 5.0 K/BB ratio, boasting 15 strikeouts to just three walks in a Gatemen uniform; defining himself as the clear ace in Wareham’s rotation.
Cotuit will give the ball to right-hander Isaac Lyon (Grand Canyon).
Appearing three times as a reliever for the Kettleers, the 6-foot-3, 200-pound will earn his first starting role since joining the team June 27.
Lyon has shown some length in the middle-relief role for the Cotuit bullpen, starting the year with two innings pitched and a single earned run against Brewster. Most recently he tossed one inning at Chatham on July 5, allowing an earned run while collecting a strikeout.
The sophomore from Grand Canyon has proven the ability to start, tossing 81 2/3 innings in 11 starts for the Thunder in the spring.
He brings six strikeouts and a 3.86 ERA in 4 2/3 innings for the Kettleers to Spillane, Wednesday.
Players to Watch
For head coach Ryan Smyth’s lineup, it seems there are new choices every night. Wareham’s offense leads the league in every major offensive category except runs (114 – 2nd) and walks (83 – 5th).
They most recently grabbed the league lead in home runs (22) coming off another two-homer day in Tuesday’s win over Chatham.
While Murf Gray (Fresno State) stayed hot with a 2-for-4 day after going deep in his previous two outings, the most torrent pace at the plate is coming from Bobby Boser (Transfer Portal).
The middle infielder grabbed the team lead in batting average after a multi-hit game against Hyannis on Friday, July 5, and hasn’t let off the gas since. Boser has now hit safely in four consecutive games, three of which being multi-hit days at the plate.
Hitting 9-for-15 in this stretch, Boser now maintains the league’s fourth best batting average, hitting .349 midway through the season.
Cotuit doesn’t have an offense worth sleeping on either, supplying the fourth most runs (4) and home runs (18) in the CCBL.
The catalyst of 20-year head coach Mike Roberts’ lineup has been Jarren Advincula (California) all summer.
With a .403 average on the year, the second baseman leads the league in batting average, with the next closest hitter being an entire 50 points behind him.
With a pure contact approach, the left-handed hitter doesn’t supply too much pop of his own – just three extra-base hits on the year – but you can find him on base nearly 45 percent of the time (.448 OBP – 7th in the league).
While Advincula gets on base, you can trust Tanner Thach (UNC – Wilmington) to hit him in. Sitting at third in the CCBL with six homers, the .250/.390/.563 slash-line of the left-handed first baseman is nothing to gloss over coming into this contest either.
While Cotuit looks to get back in the win column after a 4-3 loss to Brewster Tuesday, the Gatemen have momentum on their side riding a three-game win streak. The hottest offense in the CCBL will look for more propellant in game two of a three-game home stand, come Wednesday for a 6 p.m. first pitch at Spillane Field.
Top photo caption: right-handed pitcher Tate McGuire winds up to pitch against the Bourne Braves on July 2, 2024. Photo by: Kyler Armstrong
