By Will Kraus, Bates College
Photos by Josh Muir, Endicott College
June 18, 2019

The Wareham Gatemen come to Lowell Park on Wednesday for a 5 PM start.

The last time Wareham came to Lowell Park they ended the Kettleers’ season in 2018, sweeping Cotuit in the best two out of three first round of the playoffs. Wareham would go on to win the Cape Cod Baseball League title.

While the league has evolved over its 74 year history and the teams have very different rosters this year compared to last, the fact still remains that a startling 28 times, over a third of the league’s history, the defending champion repeated for the Cape Cod baseball crown.

But it is a new season and after seven games the Kettleers (4-2-1) and Gatemen (4-2-1) find themselves squaring off in an early season matchup to snag the division lead along with the best overall record in the league.

The Gatemen and Kettleers have both hit fairly well with Wareham having an overall batting average advantage of 286. to Cotuit’s 270. Wareham also has the two highest individual batting averages between the two teams with Chad Stevens (Portland University) posting the top average in the league of 400. while Darren Baker (California University Berkeley) bats 355.

Adam Oviedo (TCU) is coming off a two home run performance against Y-D. Photo by Josh Muir

That said, no team comes close to matching Cotuit’s ability to hit the long ball as Cotuit has hit ten home runs on the year. To put that number in perspective, the rest of the Western Division, Bourne, Falmouth, Hyannis, and Wareham only have ten bombs combined.

Oraj Anu (Kentucky) has two home runs on the season, one from each side of the plate. Photo by Josh Muir

In terms of pitching totals Cotuit and Wareham have identical earned run averages of 4.14.

It should be interesting to see these squads face off for the first time this season on Wednesday evening.