20 June 2007

Braves learning how to play the rally-cap game

By George Kostinas
GateHouse News Service
Wed Jun 20, 2007, 03:38 PM EDT 

Bourne - With a combination of a few early arriving regulars and a large number of temporary players, the Bourne Braves have jumped to a fast start.
     Losing three top pitchers to Team USA and a number of other players to the College World Series playoffs meant tough times ahead for the Braves, who won only nine games last season.
But the Braves have been a pleasant surprise to field manager Harvey Shapiro at this early stage of the season. 
     “It’s always more fun to win games than lose games, but three games does not make a season,” Shapiro says cautiously.
     While the Braves’ wins were a surprise, the manner in which they won by scoring a lot of runs to come back from big deficits excited Shapiro.
     “We’ve played well; we’ve had some good comebacks,” said the Braves manager of wins over Falmouth and Harwich in which they rallied from six runs behind in each game.
     “You normally don’t do that in the Cape League with the wooden bats and the good pitching,” he says. 
     Mitch Harris (Navy) provided the Braves with some of that good pitching to get things started in a 7-6 win over the Cotuit Kettleers. He struck out six and allowed only one run in six innings for the win.
     “I thought he did a good job, especially considering he hadn’t pitched in a couple of weeks,” says Shapiro.
     “He’s an outstanding young man. Hard working. He has very good presence on the mound. Competitive. And he’s 6-4,” says Shapiro. While Harris consistently throws in the low 90s, Shapiro feels he will get better as the season progresses.
     “Maybe he’ll get even more consistent when he gets back in shape, not that he’s really out of shape. … when you haven’t pitched in about two weeks, it takes a while to get back into better game shape,” Shapiro says. “I’d rather see a game where the score is 3-2 and the starting pitcher goes seven innings. That’s good baseball,” he says.
     Against Falmouth it was definitely not good baseball.
“It was an ugly game for both sides. We played bad in the first part of the game and they were bad in the second part,” says Shapiro.
     Addison Maruszak (South Florida) came up with the big game as the Braves rallied from an 8-2 deficit to win 15-8. 
     “He’s a number two-type hitter,” says Shapiro, of Maruszak, who went 3-for-6 and drove in three runs. He got one of those doubles to drive in two runs and sparked the Braves’ seven-run seventh inning comeback.
     A few temporary players also go into the act. “Everybody’s contributing, whether a temporary player or permanent,” says Shapiro.
     Jordan Flasher (George Mason) relieved in the opener and shut down the Kettleers’ in the last two innings to record the save. Against Harwich, Flasher got the 8-7 10-inning victory.
     “Right now Jordan is our closer. We lost our closer to Team USA. Now we’re going to Plan B, and we’ll see how that goes. But Jordan can go as the closer or the setup guy. He’s doing a nice job for us,” says Shapiro.
     Another temporary player, Arric Mather (Franklin Pierce) played a big role in the Harwich victory. After starting pitcher Wade Kapteyn (Evansville) gave up six first inning runs, Mather pitched 5 2/3 innings of one-hit ball. “He gave us a chance to get back in the ball game,” says Shapiro.
     Then temp Ben Guez (William & Mary) delivered a bases-loaded double that gave the Braves a 7-6 lead in the sixth inning and walked to drive in the winning run in the 10th.
     “That’s highly unusual [scoring that many runs two games in a row to come back to win], but I don’t like the idea that we’re getting behind by six runs, and I’m still concerned about our starting pitching. We did not go very far,” says Shapiro. “I was telling the guys that maybe we should start the game in the third inning.”