Entering last night’s contest as the Arnie Allen Diamond at Guv Fuller Field the Falmouth Commodores were the hottest team in the Cape Cod Baseball League, having won their last four games straight, including a road sweep of a doubleheader at Chatham on Sunday. That run of success came to a close last night as the team fell back into the snags that had led to its previous streak of six games without a win.

     Orleans (14-8), the owner of the best record in east division, scored runs in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings as they rallied late in the contest for a 6-2 victory at the ballpark off of Main Street. The Commodores are back below the .500 mark again and now are 10-11-1 overall as the season hit its official halfway mark. The Commodores remained in third place in the west division thanks to a loss by the Hyannis Mets, but fell three points out of second as Wareham sneaked out a 1-0 win over the Brewster Whitecaps with the game’s lone run scoring on a wild pitch. The Commodores can sneak back to within a point of second place tonight with a win at Wareham. The game starts at 7 PM at Spillane Field.

     Falmouth got strong starting pitching out of newly arrived Rice hurler Bobby Bromhall, but the team’s relief staff failed to get the job done and the offense stranded runners on base throughout the ballgame. Bromhall left the game with the score knotted at 1-1, but Eddie Kunz (Oregon State) was unable to escape the sixth inning jam as the Cardinals went on to plate three runs in that frame and then never looked back.

     Bromhall, who had not pitched competitively since the Rice Owls had been eliminated from the College World Series about a month ago, had kept the Cards at bay through the first five innings, allowing just one hit along the way. In the sixth though, as he approached 80 pitches, Bromhall gave up a leadoff double to Mark Hallberg (Illinois-Chicago) and then a single to highly-touted Matt Wieters (Georgia Tech) that tied the contest up at 1-0. The final batter that Bromhall faced, Joe Dunnigan (Oklahoma), then hit into a fielder’s choice.

     The Commodores elected to go the bullpen from there, but the move backfired. The first man to face Kunz walked on a 3-2 pitch and then disaster struck. Kunz got a potential double-play ball off the bat of Josh Satin (California), hit right back to the hill, but the Falmouth pitcher airmailed his throw to second into center field. Second baseman Matt Nuzzo (Brown) gloved the high throw in shallow center, but couldn’t get his throw to the plate in ahead of the speedy Dunnigan, who raced all the way in from second to put Orleans up 2-1. Andrew Davis (Kent State) followed for Orleans and drove in another run with a single to right field to put the visitors up a pair.

     Orleans would go on to add two runs in the eighth to put the game out of reach. Davis drove in a run with a single as did catcher Larry Day (Connecticut) to make it 5-1. Orleans got another run against reliever Sean Morgan (Tulane) in the ninth as the leadoff man, Hallberg, singled to center and then advanced one base at a time on wild pitches, coming all the way around.

     Falmouth had taken a 1-0 lead in the fourth on an RBI groundout off the bat of Brad Chalk (Clemson) that scored Ryan Anetsberger (Illinois State), who had reached on an error by the Orleans shortstop. However the Commodores, in that inning, left a man on in scoring position, which they had also done in the previous inning and in the first. In the first, Falmouth had two aboard, but left them each. In the second, the team left a man at second, and then in the third, the club left the sacks full. Falmouth would also strand runners on the corners in the sixth. The Commodores out-hit the Cardinals in the game, 10-9, but stranded a total of 12.

     Falmouth did add a run in the eighth, but it was far too little, too late. Canham, who had his best game of the year, going 3-for-4 with a double, drilled a two-bagger to the gap and later scored on a groundout by Brett Wallace (Arizona State).

     On Sunday the team ran its winning streak to four with a sweep of two games at Chatham. In the first game the lone run of the day came on a round-tripper by Wallace, his fourth of the year. The homer came in the top of the sixth. Cory Riordan (Fordham) hurled 7.2 innings of two-hit ball for the win, his second of the year. Sam Demel (Texas Christian) worked the ninth for his fifth save of the year.

     In the second game the Commodores outslugged the A’s 10-1. Nine of the 11 Falmouth players that saw action had at least one hit in the game, with the team compiling a season-high 16 in the contest. Andrew Walker (TCU) led the way with three hits and a home run, his first of the year. Canham also collected his first of the year in the game.

     On Saturday the team beat up on Wareham in the first meeting between the teams in Falmouth, taking it 9-2. A four-run seventh busted the game wide open as Wallace singled in a run and then Anetsberger smashed a three-run double to right field that cleared the bags to make it a 8-1 ballgame at the time. Anetsberger had two hits in the game and reached all four times he came to the plate.