The first Gatorade bath of the season — Tommy Troy’s teammates celebrate with him at home plate as he walks off a 6-5 win in the ninth. (Photo by Clara Richards)
By Joe Pratt | Baylor University
Cotuit, MA — Tommy Troy (Stanford) had already made two appearances on the season before starting at second base for the Ketts on Thursday. ‘The Double T’ dug in for his first at-bat on the Cape as well, and after taking a ball and slapping two balls foul, Troy connected on a fastball which he sent to deep right-center. He opened up his CCBL debut at the plate with a scorching triple to the alley, scoring Kyle Karros (UCLA) from first after his single. The triple was Cotuit’s first run of the contest in the bottom of the second, but Troy advanced home on a wild pitch to make it a 2-0 score. After a solid flyout in the fifth, Troy had a fourth and final appearance at the plate. He took the first pitch – a curveball for ball one. When Troy dug in for the second pitch, he saw a belt-high fastball from Wareham’s pitcher and crushed it to deep left-center, walking it off for the Ketts.
In the fourth inning, the Karros-Troy tandem almost perfectly repeated what it had done in the second. Karros was on first with a two-out single right over the shortstop’s head for Troy’s second AB of the game. Tommy Troy then sprayed a ball into the right-center gap to bring home Karros for a second time, tying the game at three. Justin Miknis (Kent State) contributed with an RBI single to give the Ketts the lead.
But Wareham did not go away as they quickly erased Cotuit’s 4-3 lead in the top of the fifth. After a one-out single, Wareham’s third baseman Max Anderson (University of Nebraska Lincoln) stepped up and delivered a 2-run blast to center field to give the Gatemen a 5-4 advantage, another lead that would not end up holding
After two unsuccessful plate appearances, coach Mike Roberts made the move to replace Josh Pearson (LSU) with Carter Trice (NC State) as a pinch-hitter in the sixth. Trice led off the inning with a solo shot into the trees that line the fence at Lowell Park. It was his second homer of the season and the tying run for the Ketts.
It had come down to the final outs as Wareham was trying to escape Cotuit with a tie, and the Ketts were looking to scratch out a win in the bottom of the ninth. Zach Cole (Ball State) led off the frame and barreled up the first pitch he saw but it did not have the carry to leave the park. Kyle Karros then stepped up to the plate, confident after knocking two base hits in the contest so far. But Karros, like Cole, attacked the first ball, flaring it to the right field corner – again not far enough to fly out of LP. It was finally up to Tommy Troy, who ended up clinching Cotuit’s thirteenth victory of the summer.
“[The pitcher] liked his fastball, so he was challenging all of our hitters with it,” Karros said, “He got me a little bit, a little bit late on it and shot it too, right, and then Tommy went up there and he was actually able to get the head around on it. I [had] just got down the steps, I was taking off my gear, and I looked up and it shot out to left and then it carried out.”
William Privette pitches in relief; Privette was one of six arms who took the mound. (Photo by Clara Richards)
Reporter’s Notebook: Takeaways from the game
The Kettleers had a plus forty-six run differential going into the game but only improved upon that mark by one. This season, it has been rare to see such a tight matchup between Cotuit and its opponents. Allowing more than three or four runs is uncharacteristic of the Ketts’ pitching staff, but tonight, the bats picked them up. “It definitely feels good, considering the pitching has been picking us up a lot recently,” Kyle Karros said. “If we’re shuffling, they’ll keep us in the game. So to help them out tonight and stay in the game, it shows you a lot about our team, just being able to win in really any type of ballgame.”
- Dalton Rogers (Southern Mississippi) made his first start for Cotuit this season after pitching in five games for the Ketts last summer and posting an ERA of 2.76. Tonight, Rogers went 2.1 IP with three runs and two earned on one hit. Daniel Brooks (College of Charleston) was the first of five men out of the ‘pen and he threw for 1.2 innings, giving up two runs in the homer and four hits. Will Jacobsen (Harvard) also saw time out on the hill with 1.1 scoreless innings. Ty Johnson (Ball State), Will Privette (College of Charleston) and Max Gieg (Boston College) rounded out the night for Roberts’ staff with a handful of harmless outs.
- The offense had a total of ten hits, five of which came from Kyle Karros and Tommy Troy. Troy finished up Thursday’s game 3-for-4 with three RBIs and was a single shy of the cycle.