For Immediate Release
Kettleers Can’t Go Wrong with Havens Continued Torrid Pace at the Plate
By John Garner/CCBL
Coca-Cola Player of the Week
Reese Havens, University of South Carolina
COTUIT, MA — Reese Havens (South Carolina) made an immediate impact with the Cotuit Kettleers, playing in just three games this week. In those three games, Havens went 6-for-13 at the plate, drove in seven runs, had an average of .462 and an OBP of .500. Two of his six hits were home runs, which helped him to a 1.000 slugging percentage. Havens’ biggest game of the week came against Orleans, on his first day with the team. Havens went 3-for-5 while driving in six runs and helping Cotuit earn the win against Orleans, 17-1.
Cotuit Swinging Hot Bats
COTUIT, MA – The Cape Cod Baseball League is a summer league where players struggle adjusting to wood bats at the beginning of the season. The league also plays home to some of the nation’s best pitching prospects who constantly flirt with complete games and shutouts day in and day out.
Someone apparently forgot to tell the Kettleers.
In its first six games, Cotuit has scored over eight runs every time out except one, which was a 5-1 loss at the hands of Falmouth. The explosion has catapulted the Kettleers into first place in the Western Division with a healthy 5-1 record.
Despite the amount of runs scored, this team has stuck to the small ball style of play for which head coach Mike Roberts has been known. They have already swiped 17 bases, good for second in the league, and even Cotuit’s power hitters have succumbed to the unselfish style of ball played in Cotuit, laying down sacrifice bunts and doing whatever it takes to manufacture runs.
The biggest contribution has come from the bat of Reese Havens (South Carolina) who has an astonishing seven RBIs in nine at-bats. Equally amazing isJeff Dunbar (UC Riverside) and his six RBIs in six at-bats. The hot hitting has been contagious for Cotuit, where fans have seen every player on the roster record at least one RBI thus far on the young season. The Kettleers have a combined team batting average of .343, easily far and above the rest of the league, which is struggling to reach the .250 mark.
With everything seemingly functioning to perfection, Coach Roberts hasn’t been shy going to the hit-and-run and taking chances on the base paths, a strategy he is more than happy to implement.
“Hitting like this makes my job a lot easier. The boys are making the games fun to manage,” claimed the third-year Cotuit coach after an emphatic beating of Orleans on Wednesday.
To say the bats alone are leading to the success of the Kettleers would be a slap to the great young pitching staff that has been assembled. The staff has only allowed more than three runs in one game, and pitcher of the week Dan Delucia (Ohio State) has been nearly perfect in his 16 innings of work, scattering just five hits. His two starts have gone eight innings apiece, with a gem coming at the hands of Bourne, where he struck out seven Braves.
The pitching staff has compiled a combined ERA of 1.70.
The numbers speak for themselves. Cotuit is the league’s best team in hitting and pitching. This dominance has left the loyal fans and citizens of Cotuit foaming at the mouth in hopes that their team can keep these numbers up and bring the Cape League title to where it rightfully belongs.
By Nicholas Mucci, CCBL Intern mucci@capecodbaseball.org