Before Thursday night’s game in Hyannis, about a dozen geese gathered in center field. Two bat boys from Falmouth tried chasing them away but came up empty. Hyannis center fielder Dominic Jose gave it a go next, but the geese weren’t interested in leaving.
Eventually, the Hyannis bullpen made it happen in between the top and the bottom of the first inning. But for that top of the first, Jose played center field with a gaggle all around him.
The funny thing was that nobody seemed too worried about it.
I guess with Sean Manaea (Indiana State) on the mound, you don’t care much about center field.
Manaea, the Cape League’s strikeout leader, continued his tremendous summer with his third straight dominant start. He struck out the side in that first inning on his way to 15 strikeouts in seven shutout innings. He allowed two hits, didn’t walk anybody and picked up the victory as Hyannis topped Falmouth 4-1.
Manaea has been rolling all season, and especially lately. He struck out 13 in his last start after getting nine the start before that.
I wondered what he could do for an encore, hoping that he’d be as good on the night I got to see him. He was better than I could have imagined.
Manaea had a perfect game until an error in the fourth and a no-hitter until Kyle Ruchim (Northwestern) lined a single back through the box in the fifth. He struck out every batter in the Falmouth lineup at least once. Twelve of his 15 strikeouts were of the swinging variety. The only hit other than Ruchim’s liner was an infield single to shortstop that Mike O’Neill (Michigan) beat out. He threw 92 pitches, and 70 were strikes.
Manaea now has 66 strikeouts — and six walks — in 37.2 innings. He has struck out more than the last three end-of-season strikeout leaders, with only Brandon Workman’s 67 in 2008 keeping him from making it the last six. If he continues to pitch well, Manaea may head into 2005 territory when Daniel Bard struck out 82 and Tim Norton K’d 77.
Manaea, who wasn’t getting a lot of run support early in the season, has had plenty of help lately, and that was the case again. Falmouth starter Trey Masek (Texas Tech) had his own awesome night, striking out 11 in six innings on his way to the hardest of hard-luck losses. Hyannis touched him up for two unearned runs in the second. An error opened the door and an RBI groundout by Jose plus a Zach Alvord (Auburn) RBI single brought the runs home. Falmouth added a run in the seventh on a Brett Michael Doran (Stanford) RBI double and another in the eighth on a Blake Austin (Auburn) solo home run.
Walter Wijas (Kentucky) pitched a scoreless eighth in relief of Manaea, and Peter Miller (Florida State) worked out of some trouble in the ninth to seal the victory.
There were 30 combined strikeouts between the teams.
Elsewhere
What to Watch
Harwich and Orleans get together again in Orleans tonight at 7 p.m. Former first-round pick Dylan Covey (San Diego) goes for the Firebirds against David Whitehead (Elon). There should also be a good match-up in Brewster, where Y-D sends ace Aaron Blair (Marshall) to the mound against Sam Moll (Memphis).
Also today, all-star rosters will be announced.
The YD game was even wilder than the score suggests. After the seventh inning, with the sun setting and YD leading 10-8, the umpires decided that only one more inning would be played. Then Brewster rallied for three in the top of the eighth, giving them an 11-10 lead and necessitating that the bottom half be played. In the darkest half inning I’ve ever witnessed, Robert Pehl led off the inning by crushing what appeared to be a game-tying home run, but the home plate umpire called it foul, riling up the YD crowd.
It wouldn’t be a CCBL game without an umpiring contoversy. The 75-year-old gentleman behind me yelled, “Ump, you stink!”. Then the ump turned around, took off his mask, and gave the old guy The Look of Death.
At Chatham the other night I felt sorry for the timid umpire whom Schiffner abused, but I felt no such sympathy for this guy. Fortunately for him, YD rallied to score the winning runs.
Ryon Healy made three outstanding plays at third for the Whitecaps. The guy sitting next to me said Aaron Judge was fitting balls over the trees in center field during batting practice.