CHATHAM — As he stepped to the plate to lead off the game in his charcoal-colored jersey with Chatham lettering, Grant Green stopped for a second to acknowledge the applauding fans at Red Wilson Field. 

A’s players don’t ordinarily receive an at-bat ovation at an opposing team’s park, but the adulation on that early July day was a way for Red Sox supporters to thank Green for his service last season, in which he helped Y-D win its second consecutive Cape League championship.

By the end of the game, however, no one wearing red and white was clapping for the ex-Sox slugger. 

Green tormented his former team with a 4-for-5 performance that included a ninth-inning home run in the A’s 5-2 win over their East Division rivals. And while four-hit outings aren’t the norm for the sensational shortstop, torching teams with timely hits has been. 

A starter on the esteemed all-star team and a front-runner for the MVP, Green is second in the Cape League in batting average (.392), first in hits (49) and slugging percentage (.608), and ranks in the top five in many other categories: doubles (10), extra base hits (16), run scored (27), and on-base percentage (.483. 

The A’s talented table-setter has a team-best 10 stolen bases, a team-best five home runs, and has driven in 17 runs, largely from the leadoff spot, no less. 

“The key has been staying as consistent as possible and treating every game like it’s a Friday night game,” said Green. “This year I have a better idea of what the pitchers are thinking and what their stuff looks like. I never worry about getting a base hit in any situation. I try to hit the ball as hard as I can, and when I do that, usually good things happen.” 

Green’s way of bludgeoning the ball each at-bat has worked out well. He’s hit safely in all but three of 32 games and has recorded 14 multiple-hit games, including a stretch in late June when he went 9-for-14 over a three-day period. 

His knack for base knocks has put the 20-year-old USC star in line to become the first Cape Leaguer to finish the season with a .400 average since former USC slugger Mark Smith hit .408 for Wareham in 1990. 

“You have to be lucky to hit around .400 or even in the high 300s,” said Green. “I’m realistic. I know that every hit I get isn’t a great hit. Even my home run at Y-D (notorious for its short porch in center field), was 350-and-a-half feet, a nice little wall-scrapper.”

A less dubious dinger came in a recent win over Brewster, in which Green smacked a solo shot off Whitecap starter Tim Clubb, who came into the contest with a 4-0 record and 0.35 ERA. But the A’s slugger isn’t putting much stock into his stats. Not yet, at least.

“If I can finish around .400, it’ll be more of a feat than just doing it through the first 30 games,” said Green. “It doesn’t mean a thing if you don’t finish strong.”

No one knows that better than Green, who went from freezer-cold to furnace-hot during the playoffs last year. In the East Division championship series against Chatham, Green went 0-for-7 with four strikeouts in the two-game set.

“We faced Alex White, one of the best pitchers in the country, and my USC teammate Tommy Milone, who, for some reason I can’t seem to hit, even at school with an aluminum bat, and even if I know what pitch he’s throwing,” said Green. “I don’t want to say I was overmatched, but they had my ticket. They knew how to pitch me and they succeeded very well. They were in my head the whole playoffs.”

Green snapped out of that small slump in a big way, swatting two home runs while driving in four runs in the opener of the Cape League championship against Falmouth. He also had a hit in the CCBL-clincher against the Commodores. 

“Winning the title was an amazing experience,” said Green, who hit .291 with four HRs and 12 RBIs in leading Y-D to a 31-12-1 regular season. “It was one of the first championships I’ve won since I was 12.”

Green said he would have returned to the Red Sox “in a heartbeat” if not for an unpleasant experience with his host family. That, along with the prospect of playing with his Trojan teammates Kevin Couture and Brad Boxberger, “made it an easy decision to come to Chatham.”

The A’s were more than happy to have him, and with good reason. 

At USC, Green became the first true freshman in nearly a decade to play shortstop, batting .316 and setting a team-record with 10 triples. This past spring, he led the So Cal school with a .390 average, collecting a team-best 80 hits and nine home runs in 50 games. 

“Grant has been a great pick-up for us and is one of the best leaders I’ve been around,” Chatham Field Manager John Schiffner said. “He carries himself like a pro, is a great role model for the rest of the team and is a classic hitter who doesn’t care where he plays as long as he plays. He really enjoys playing the game of baseball.”

So much so, in fact, that rarely can Grant suppress his smile or satisfaction. During one game, for example, he was beaming while hanging between the basepaths, and in another, he playfully put teammate Gregg Glime, who faked a high-five, in a headlock after hitting a home run. 

“Playing baseball is the only time of day I don’t have to worry about anything else other than playing the game,” said Green, whose ruined a number of no-hitters right from the get go. 

“I like hitting leadoff, but I liked it a lot more at the beginning of the season when I was getting fastballs the first pitch of the game,” said Green. “The pitchers out here have come to realize they can’t blow everyone by with their fastball.”

That hasn’t stopped them from trying. 

In Thursday’s game against Harwich, Green sent the second pitch of the game (a heater from J.J. Hoover) over the right field wall for his fourth moon shot of the season. 

That kind of production prompted Schiffner to switch Green to third in the line up late last week. It’s a move that’s paid dividends, as Green doubled in a run in the third and hammered a two-run homer in the fifth – his first HR that wasn’t a solo shot – in Chatham’s 7-5 victory over Brewster on Friday. He also singled in a key run in the A’s 10-3 win over the Whitecaps the next night.