This post should be all about Zach DeLoach.
But his teammates are crashing the party.
Falmouth’s DeLoach (Texas A&M) continued his assualt on Cape League pitching Thursday night, going 4-for-5 with a home run and three RBI. He’s now batting .420, and this is pretty deep into the season to be batting .420. He also has four home runs.
And with all that, he didn’t even have the best night on his team Thursday. Baron Radcliff (Georgia Tech) went 2-for-5 with two home runs and eight RBI. Taylor Smith (Grayson County CC) also homered, his fifth of the summer. As you might guess, that adds up to a pretty good night for Falmouth. The Commodores blasted Chatham 15-6.
The production for DeLoach is nothing new, at least this summer. But it was a different story in the spring, when DeLoach followed a solid freshman year with a sophomore slump that left him hitting .200. On the Cape, he went hitless in his first five at-bats, but in his third game, he went 4-for-4 and hasn’t really stopped. DeLoach has hits in 13 of his last 14 games, six of them multi-hit performances. In addition to leading the league in hitting, he tops the circuit in on-base percentage.
He certainly has some company, too. Radcliff was hitting just .156 with no homers and four RBI before his breakout performance. Smith is hitting only .226 but has an OPS of 1.157. Tim Tawa (Stanford) added three hits, Trei Cruz (Rice) had two and Hayden Cantrelle (Louisiana Lafayette) had two to go with two stolen bases.
Falmouth isn ow 13-10-1.
Hyannis 2, Orleans 0
Hyannis had its best pitching night of the season and got a big hit from its star in the top of the ninth inning for a 2-0 win over Orleans. Cole Pletka (Dayton), Patrick Fredrickson (Minnesota) and Trevor DeLaite (Maine) combined on the team’s first shutout of the year, with Fredrickson earning the win. He and Pletka both struck out five in four-inning stints. Orleans matched them until the ninth, when one swing of the bat by Hunter Goodman (Memphis) broke the deadlock. Goodman hit a two-run homer, his fifth of the summer, that proved to be the game-winner. One of the top freshman hitters in the nation this year, Goodman now leads the league in RBI with 24.
Cotuit 2, Harwich 0
Reid Johnston (NC State) and Matthew Mervis (Duke) combined on an ACC-flavored shutout as Cotuit beat Harwich. Johnston struck out four and allowed only two hits in six innings. In four starts – two shorts ones and two longer ones – Johnston owns a 0.52 ERA. Mervis was even better, striking out seven of the 10 batters he faced in 10 hitless innings. The two-way standout has a 2.25 ERA and is hitting .296. Donta Williams (Arizona) hit a solo home run to stake the Kettleers to an early lead.
Wareham 4, Bourne 2
Strong relief work and late, tie-breaking offense propelled Wareham to its third straight win. Levi Prater (Oklahoma) struck out seven in four innings of one-hit ball out of the bullpen for the win. Ben Leeper (Oklahoma State) picked up the save. Matt McClain (UCLA) had a two-run single in the first inning for the Gatemen. The game was tied 2-2 until the seventh, when Dallas Beaver (Central Florida) hit an RBI single for the lead. Jacob Teter (Florida Southern) added an RBI single in the eighth, part of a three-hit night. Darren Baker (Cal) and Braiden Ward (Washington) added two hits each, and Ward stole his 17th base.
Y-D 5, Brewster 3
Does it seem like these two are always playing each other? In their fifth meeting in the last 12 days, Y-D broke through after two straight losses to the Whitecaps. Riley King (Georgia) went 4-for-4 with two home runs and four RBI for the Red Sox, his first homers of the season. He’s now hitting .349. Austin Wells (Arizona) also went deep and regained sole possession of the league lead at six bombs. The offense backed a strong effort by starting pitcher Erik Tolman (Arizona State), who struck out eight and allowed one run in 5.2 innings. Taylor Dollard (Cal Poly) stopped a rally in the eighth for his fourth save.
What to Watch
Franco Aleman (St. John’s River CC) will make his fourth start as Falmouth hosts Bourne. He has yet to allow an earned run.