In the first inning against Wareham on Friday night, there was a ton to process. Caleb Daniel (Georgia Tech), however, just knew he had to get a knock.
“See ball, hit ball as they say,” Daniel said to Y-D sideline reporter Olivia Lambert.
With two outs and the bases loaded in the first inning, Daniel smoked a 1-1 pitch to left-center field for a bases-clearing double, sparking a Y-D Red Sox onslaught as the club run-ruled Wareham 14-2 in seven innings.
The win marks a dazzling 5-0 start. In the first four contests, Y-D leaned heavily on its pitching staff to stay in games before the offense delivered timely hits. The bats weren’t the hottest to start the season, yet this game felt like a breakthrough. Y-D entered the game with a .645 OPS, which ranked among the bottom three marks in the CCBL. Its 12-hit performance Friday boosted that figure to .741, good for a top-three ranking in the league. The offensive breakout didn't come by accident. Assistant coach Craig Gianinno credited the team's preparation and growing comfort with wooden bats for the surge at the plate.
“These guys are starting to really acclimate to the game up here with the wood bat and the great arms,” Gianinno said. “Our interns and analytic guys do a really good job preparing the reports for the guys, and the hitters are buying into how we need to beat certain arms. That showed tonight from the jump. Offense is contagious, and guys are just passing the bat along and doing their job.”
Y-D scored at least two runs in five of the seven innings thanks to excellent plate discipline. The 12 walks forced are by far the most by Y-D in the first five games of the season, and opened up major extra-base hit opportunities along the way. Scott Pickler’s squad scored four runs in the first and two in the second before busting the doors open in the fourth. Kevin Takeuchi (University of Southern California) got his first hit as a Y-D Red Sox player in the fourth before scoring on a Brady Dallimore sac fly to make it 9-2.
Takeuchi arrived Tuesday night after Y-D’s win over Orleans and made an immediate impact Thursday, going 1-for-3 with two walks.
“My teammates always talk about how fun it is out here, and even after one game, I can tell that these boys have a lot of fun and play with a lot of passion,” Takeuchi said. “I’m excited just to see how it goes and continue to roll.”
The California native is fresh off a strong run to the Super Regionals with the Trojans, where he shined on the national stage, batting .371 and blasting two homers in eight games.
“It was a super cool experience,” Takeuchi said. “Unfortunately, we fell a little bit short of making the College World Series, but it was a super fun experience playing in cool environments with the best competition in the world, and definitely something I won't forget.”
Seven different players recorded RBIs for Y-D, and Jake Souders (Mississippi State) got on base five times. He was hit by a pitch in the seventh and later scored the game's final run. It capped off an all-around team effort, as Easton Teel (Oral Roberts) got the start for Y-D and pitched well. He got roughed up for the only two runs that Wareham scored in the second, but otherwise kept the damage to a minimum. Souders’ future teammate, Zach Russell, relieved Teel and proceeded to toss 2.1 scoreless innings, while Cooper McMullen put the game to sleep with a clean seventh inning.
The pitching staff has been nothing short of phenomenal, posting a league-best 2.09 ERA through five games. The Y-D Red Sox have also gone 25-5 in the month of June since the start of the 2024 season, highlighting the team’s consistent success early in the summer, but Gianinno knows there’s a lot of work left to do.
“The game's so fickle, right? You have to respect the game, do all the little things right, and you still may not be on the other side of it in the win/loss column, but the guys have battled and come together,” Gianinno said. “That bullpen culture has come together quickly. The position players are a great group of guys who enjoy being around each other, so the group as a whole has enjoyed spending time together and hanging out, and it's only going to continue to grow.”
Y-D has a chance to get to 6-0 when it returns home to face Cotuit at 5 p.m.
