Yarmouth-Dennis clung to a one-run lead in the sixth inning when Chatham threatened with two outs and the tying run 90 feet away. Braden Osbolt induced a slow ground ball to Cade McGee at third who rifled the ball to first for the final out and allowed the former to let out some emotion.
Osbolt walked back to the dugout under the bright lights of Veterans Field, received an array of congratulatory high-fives from his teammates and coaches in the first base dugout and had yet to realize what he had accomplished just two batters before.
“I tied my career-high in strikeouts and didn’t even know it,” Osbolt said following Y-D’s second consecutive 2-1 win. “It was really fun especially here in the first weekend and it’s been a fun week getting to know all the guys so it’s awesome.”
Osbolt set his career-high in strikeouts back on March 8 against Kentucky who finished the season ranked No. 1 in the country. Sunday night’s clash with Chatham gave the Kennesaw State right-hander his first career win on the Cape and put his masterful performance on par with one of the greatest in his career.
The 2024 All-Atlantic Sun Third-Team selection faced the minimum until the sixth inning when he escaped the damage unscathed. Osbolt struck out six of the last seven batters he faced from the last out in the third to the fifth and struck out the side in that fifth frame. Osbolt’s quality start featured just one walk and one hit allowed that came as a leadoff infield single in the first inning.
Osbolt retired 14 hitters in a row following that infield hit and threw more than 65 percent of his pitches for strikes. This was nothing new for the talented right-hander who dominated over his final five outings with the Owls and allowed just six earned runs in 23 innings. For Osbolt, it was just another day at the yard in a game that he “loves.”
“I love the battles that we get in,” Osbolt said. “I call them mini battles in the game, during the inning and just competing every single pitch and that's what keeps me going. I love baseball.”
The anatomy of Osbolt’s outing consisted of deception and mixing the velocities of his four pitch mix to keep hitters guessing. Osbolt paired his low-90s fastball with his upper-80s cutter and several offspeed pitches that ranged 20 mph slower than his fastball.
Osbolt said how his swing-and-miss pitch was the fastball which he was able to “sneak in” as a put away pitch in two-strike counts. As a traditional pitch-to-contact arm, living down in the zone was natural to Osbolt who said, “the mentality of attacking and filling up the zone and keeping your guys in it helps throughout the course of the game.”
“Just the sequence that he had, the way he set up hitters and finished hitters off,” head coach Scott Pickler said. “He's got four quality pitches, not many guys up there have four quality pitches. With his confidence and the idea that he can throw all four for strikes in any count.”
Osbolt’s six scoreless innings set the stage for the back end of the bullpen to continue its dominance as Bethune-Cookman’s Pablo Torres and Stanford’s Trevor Moore combined for the final three innings.
Osbolt, Torres and Moore totaled 13 strikeouts to give the Red Sox pitching staff 27 punch outs through the first two games. The first earned run of the season allowed by Y-D came in the eighth inning of Sunday’s win before Moore shut the door in a role he’s familiar with.
A consistent reliever at Stanford, Moore posted a six-out save who echoed Osbolt by attacking hitters with four strikeouts. Osbolt and Moore both shared the joys of being a part of this pitching staff which has come together as a family with the first weekend in the books. Playing for something bigger has given this group of pitchers a lift.
“These guys around me, this whole first week, when you look back behind you, you just want to do it for them, do it for the guys, get a win and try to keep this thing rolling,” Osbolt said.
Photo by Sophie Solarino
