by Andrew Brooks (Living the Dream Blog)
Interviews by Evan Barber and Andrew Brooks : Chris Beck, CT Bradford, Coach Farris, Coach Roberts,
June 25, 2011
WAREHAM – Baseball is strange. Sometimes, as the old adage goes, one should expect the unexpected.
It was the fifth inning. Wareham’s CT Bradford (Ole Miss) hadn’t had a hit all year. Cotuit starter Chris Beck (Georgia Southern) hadn’t given up a hit all game. As luck would have it, Bradford blasted a Beck fastball to right field just out of the reach of the ranging Victor Roache (Georgia Southern) to score Wareham catcher Tyler Ross (LSU) from second base. Bradford finished standing on third with a triple. The run proved to be the only one of the game, giving the Gatemen the 1-0 win.“I had chased a couple change ups earlier in the game,” explained Bradford. “He came in early in the at bat with a fastball, so I though he’d come back with it. So I turned on it, and that’s what I was expecting.”
The winning pitcher was Joshua Turley (Baylor). He threw 5 and 2/3 innings of three hit ball. He only walked one. Konner Wade (Arizona) sat down the Kettleers in order in the 9th, picking up his second save of the season.
Wareham Coach Cooper Farris praised all his pitchers for the shutout.
“I think all our guys kept the ball around the strike zone, only walked two tonight, and the walks didn’t hurt us. We picked a couple guys off and that’s always big against those guys.”
Chris Beck’s performance was nothing short of admirable, going 6 2/3 innings, only allowing three hits, the one earned run, and three walks, while striking out six. His ERA at the end of the game was 1.86. The six strikeouts gave him 19 total for the season, which is good enough for 3rd in the entire Cape League.
“I felt good, had a meeting today about pitching to our strengths. I worked a lot off the change up today, tried to get a lot of ground balls, got some swings and misses with the change up.”
Beck used knee high fastballs to set up his change up. He had Wareham hitters out in front of his off speed pitch all night. If it weren’t for the fifth inning, Beck’s night would have been considered a flawless gem.
Cotuit missed their chance to offensively explode in the sixth inning. Victor Roache (Georgia Tech) smacked a scrappy grounder that went through the legs of shortstop Derek Dennis (Michigan). After a Jordan Leyland (UC Irvine) flyout, Alex Yarbrough (Ole Miss) hit a soft single to right field to move Roache up to second. Turley then plunked Stefan Sabol (Oregon) with a fastball (Oregon), bringing Ryon Healy to the plate with bases loaded. Right hander Daniel Teehan (UCONN) relieved Turley of the mound. After the count went full, Daniel got Healy to swing through a fast ball for strike three.
The loss was Cotuit’s fifth in a row. They will try to right the ship on Sunday when the Harwich Mariners come to town. The game will be at 5:00.