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A Grand Night

Wade Wass hit two grand slams and had nine RBI last night.
Wade Wass hit two grand slams and had nine RBI last night.

 

On a July night last summer, Max Pentecost delivered the season’s most memorable performance when he went 5-for-5 with two home runs. The Bourne catcher had a great summer overall, but that was the night he put himself in the MVP running and the night he cemented his burgeoning prospect status.

It remains to be seen what the rest of the 2014 summer – and beyond – holds for Brewster catcher Wade Wass (Alabama). But on a July night, Wass had the same kind of night that Pentecost had.

In a 12-5 Brewster win over Wareham at Stony Brook Field, Wass hit two grand slams and drove in nine runs.

Cape Cod Baseball League single game records are not readily available online, but I’ve got to think Wass’s performance cracks the books somewhere. In Major League Baseball history, players have two hit grand slams in a single game just 13 times. The last was in 2009. Nine RBI is a little more common at the MLB level, but in seven years of writing about the Cape League, I can’t remember a player hitting that number.

Obviously, it was a heck of a night.

Wass, a junior-college transfer, hit .302 with five homers for Alabama this spring. He was a 13th-round draft pick in 2012 out of the junior college ranks but stayed put.

This summer, he had just five hits in his first nine games but broke out with a home run on a 3-for-4, four RBI night on Saturday. After an 0-4 on Sunday, he delivered his grand performance Wednesday.

With a television audience on Fox College Sports – the crew’s first Cape broadcast of the summer – Wass came up in the third inning with the bases loaded and delivered his first grand slam. In the fifth, he doubled home a run, giving him a pretty good performance even if he had stopped there.

He did not. In the eighth, he came up again with the bases loaded and again smashed a grand slam.

Brewster won 12-5, with big nights from Braden Bishop (Washington) and Gio Brusa (Pacific) as well. Cody Ponce (Cal Poly Pomona) and Andrew Naderer (Grand Canyon) combined on a solid pitching performance.

And they would all agree the night belonged to their teammate. Wass, not surprisingly, now leads the league in RBI with 18 and is tied for second in home runs with three.

 

Orleans 13, Hyannis 0

The Firebirds now own the longest win streak of the summer thanks to a 13-0 shutout of Hyannis last night. Trent Thornton (North Carolina) struck out seven in five innings and combined with Cody Moffett (Arizona) and Tyler Honahan (Stony Brook) on the shutout. Thornton, who gave up five runs in his last start, allowed just three hits, all singles. The Firebirds offense gave him plenty of support, racing to a 7-0 lead after three innings. R.J. Ybarra (Arizona State) went 3-for-4 with two RBI, while Brett Lang (North Carolina) drove in three runs. Edwin Rios (Florida International) also had two RBI, giving him 16 on the year. Orleans is now 11-8, just one game back of Harwich for first place in the East. The Firebirds have scored 39 runs in their last three games and 59 in the six-game streak.

 

Bourne 7, Harwich 6

Losers of three straight, Bourne came to Whitehouse Field and righted the ship with a narrow victory over East-leading Harwich. The Braves are now 12-6, matching Harwich for the best record in the league. The teams combined for 29 hits in their match-up, but Bourne had a little more offense. Blake Davey (Connecticut) had three hits and two RBI, while five of his teammates knocked in one run apiece. Davey and Harrison Bader (Florida) both homered. Harwich was balanced as well, getting at least one hit from every spot in the lineup, including two from recently arrived C.J. Hinojosa (Texas). Jacob Sparger (Louisville) got the win in relief for Bourne. Joey Strain (Winthrop) picked up a save.

 

Chatham 7, Cotuit 2

The big night by Wass will make headlines, but nobody in the league has been hotter of later than Chatham’s A.J. Murray (Georgia Tech). He went 3-for-3 with a home run and three RBI last night as the Anglers beat Cotuit 7-2. Murray is riding an eight-game hit streak that includes seven two-hit games and three home runs. He’s batting an even .500 – 18-for-36 – in the streak. He’s tied for the league lead in homers, ranks second in RBI and is sixth in batting average. Last night, Chris Shaw (Boston College) also homered for the Anglers and Kal Simmons (Kennesaw State) added two hits. Jordan Hillyer (Kennesaw State) allowed one run in five innings, maintaining some remarkable consistency. He has gone exactly five innings and given up exactly one run in all three of his starts, and he has won them all.

 

Y-D 8, Falmouth 1

Kevin Duchene (Illinois) delivered the performance Y-D’s been waiting for, striking out nine in six shutout innings as the Red Sox beat Falmouth 8-1. Duchene, the former Big Ten Freshman of the Year, hadn’t yet hit his groove and sported a 6.08 ERA after three starts. But Wednesday, he didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning and gave up just two overall. The nine strikeouts vaulted him to second in the league. With Duchene pitching like that and Falmouth starting Kevin McCanna (Rice) the game shaped up as a low-scoring affair, but Y-D scored five runs – four unearned – off McCanna, who had allowed four runs all season. Jordan Tarsovich (VMI) went 3-for-4 to raise his league-best average to .413. Hunter Cole (Georgia) and Vincent Jackson (Tennessee) had two RBI apiece.

 

What to Watch

Today will bring the first of two games in the annual Fourth of July holiday rivalry series. Orleans and Chatham will be interesting as always, especially with the Firebirds riding their win streak. In Brewster, we’ll see what Wade Wass can do for an encore against Harwich’s Michael Boyle (Radford), who hasn’t allowed an earned run all summer.

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Daily Fog: The Start that Counts

Ian Happ is off to a big start for Harwich - and so are his team's starting pitchers.
Ian Happ is off to a big start for Harwich – and so are his team’s starting pitchers.

 

In a Cape Cod Baseball League season, it always takes a week or two for starting pitchers to warm up. Many have been out of action for a while, so they have to get stretched out. They start small, three innings, four innings, maybe five.

But in Harwich, they have started big.

A night after James Mulry (Northeastern) struck out nine in seven shutout innings, Jason Inghram (William & Mary) took a perfect game into the sixth and struck out eight in seven scoreless frames as the Mariners moved to 2-0 with a 10-0 victory over Brewster.

Of the 20 starts made by Cape League pitchers this year, only three have seen the starter go more than six innings, and Harwich’s southpaw duo owns two of those. The average has been 4.2 innings, and Mulry and Inghram have blown that out of the water.

Inghram’s performance was part of a big night for pitching on the Cape, where three games ended in shutouts. His performance was as good as any.

Inghram was the ace of the William & Mary staff this spring with an ERA under two and a 10-2 record. He also racked 109.2 innings, so he’s plenty warmed up. On Thursday, he needed just 86 pitches to get through seven. He retired the first 17 batters he faced before Josh Vidales (Houston) broke up his perfect game in the sixth. He allowed one more two-out hit in the seventh and nothing else.

Ronnie Glenn (Penn) and Skylar Hunter (The Citadel) pitched a scoreless frame each to finish off the win.

The Harwich offense also took care of business, pounding 11 hits and breaking the game open with a six-run fourth. Returning star Ian Happ (Cincinnati) had another big night, going 2-for-3 with three runs scored and an RBI. Sal Annunziata (Seton Hall) added two hits and three RBI, while Anthony Hermelyn (Oklahoma) drove in two.

North Carolina star Skye Bolt made his long-awaited Harwich debut when he pinch-hit in the eighth. Bolt was on the Harwich roster last year but ended up with Team USA.

Falmouth 3, Y-D 0

Pitching also shined in Yarmouth, where second-year Falmouth Commodore Kevin McCanna (Rice) tossed six innings of one-hit baseball in a 3-0 win. McCanna had an ERA over six on the Cape last summer, but his spring at Rice was an indicator that he’d be moving in the right direction this summer. He obliged in his first start, striking out four and giving up just the one hit. At the plate, Matt Eureste (San Jacinto) and Austin Afenir (Oral Roberts) – both on temporary contracts – drove in a run apiece, with Afenir notching three hits. Y-D starter Kevin Duchene (Illinois), a former Big 10 Freshman of the Year, gave up two runs in 4.2 innings.

Bourne 1, Orleans 0

The other shutout belonged to Bourne, which moved to 2-0 with an 11-inning victory over the Firebirds. Eric Nyquist (Mercer) gave up two hits in six innings before giving way to the bullpen, which picked up where he left off. Lucas Laster (Mississippi State), John Gorman (Boston College) and Brad Raley (Lake Erie College) delivered five scoreless frames and set the stage for Bourne to walk-off in the 11th. With a runner on third, Billy Fleming (West Virginia) smacked a base hit to bring in the only run of the game and give Bourne the win. The Braves finished with only three hits as Orleans pitchers were just as good as their counterparts. Tyler Honahan (Stony Brook) started and struck out five in five innings.

Wareham 13, Chatham 3

Wareham’s 2013 offense did not score more than 12 runs a single time, but the 2014 Gatemen did it on day two as they got into the win column with a blowout of Chatham. Wareham got at least one hit from every player in the lineup and finished the night with 17. Nick Halamandaris (California) went 3-for-5 with two RBI, while Memphis teammates Jake Little and Keaton Aldridge each hit home runs – the first homers of the Cape League season. Little and Aldridge also had multi-hit games, along with Willie Calhoun (Arizona), Andrew Knizner (NC State) and Charlie Warren (Rice). Anthony Kay (Connecticut) got the win with three scoreless innings of relief.

Hyannis 6, Cotuit 5

The Harbor Hawks and Kettleers met for the second straight night, and the Hawks delivered their second straight one-run win. After trailing 4-0 they rallied to tie it but fell behind 5-4 in the eighth. But in the top of the ninth, they scored two to take a one-run lead and held it through the bottom of the ninth. Florida State star freshman Ben DeLuzio, a third-round pick out of high school, delivered a two-run triple in the eighth to give Hyannis the lead. Lance Thonvold (Minnesota) struck out two in a scoreless ninth to seal the win. Hyannis also got two RBI from Bobby Melley (Connecticut), the Barnstable native who’s coming off a huge year for UConn. Cotuit got another multi-hit night from D.C. Arendas (South Carolina), who went 2-for-3 and is your early league batting average leader.

What to Watch

Two big-time pitchers will make their Cape League debuts tonight. At 6:30 in Falmouth, Y-D’s Michael Murray (Florida Gulf Coast) gets the ball on the heels of a tremendous spring in which he emerged as one of the nation’s best pitchers. In Orleans, the Firebirds will start Trevor Megill (Loyola Marymount), who was a third-round pick of the Cardinals in this year’s draft. Megill, who was on Orleans’ preseason roster last year, had Tommy John surgery and missed all of this past season at Loyola.