AJ Pollack got the night off on Tuesday. On Wednesday night the outfielder from the University of Notre Dame played like a well-rested man.

     Pollack, who leads the league with a .455 batting average, had a huge evening for the Falmouth Commodores as the team’s leadoff hitter was a perfect 5-for-5 at the plate and scored the winning run in a 3-2 victory over Wareham at Spillane Field. The victory was the second in a row for Falmouth, after having gone winless in their previous six ballgames, and got the team back to the .500 mark at 7-7-1 overall.

     Pollack led off the top of the ninth with a double to right-center and then went to third when Brian Fletcher (Auburn) sacrificed him to third with a bunt. Falmouth nearly was left disappointed after Wareham was able to get Trevor Coleman (Missouri) to bounce to third, but Jim Cesario (Houston) came through in the clutch by delivering an RBI-single down the left field line to plate the go-ahead run for the Commodores.

     Ben Tootle (Jacksonville State), who had gotten Falmouth out of a jam in the eighth, worked a perfect ninth inning to earn the victory for Falmouth. Tootle got three quick outs to retire the side and end the game. In all he faced four batters and got all of them out.

     It was the second straight game that saw Falmouth’s pitching simply dominate a west division foe. On both Wednesday and Tuesday night, against Hyannis, Commodores pitching allowed just four hits. In the two wins the team fanned 13 batters and walked just five.

     Nate Karns (Texas Tech) got the start for the Commodores and worked six strong innings, surrendering two runs on three hits with six K’s and three walks. Aaron Loup came on to work the seventh and went 1.2 innings, giving up just one hit. Tootle then closed things out.

     Falmouth scored first in the game, taking a 1-0 lead on an RBI-single by Pollack that scored Darin Ruf (Creighton). In the fourth the visitors went up by a pair when Joey Wong drove in Ryan Jones, who reached on an error, with an infield single. Wareham struck back to tie it up with two in the fourth.

     Against Hyannis on Tuesday night five Falmouth pitchers combined to keep Hyannis off the scoreboard. Jon Kountis (Ohio Dominican) started the game and allowed just two hits over five innings. Chris Gloor (Quinnipiac), Evan Danielli (Notre Dame), Shaeffer Hall (Kansas) and Preston Claiborne (Tulane) baffled the Mets the rest of the way, with Claiborne earning his first save of the year while Kountis, who got the win, evened his record at 1-1.

     A 1-0 game was blown open by the Commodores in the eighth. The team pushed across three runs to give themselves some much-needed breathing room. Fletcher, who was playing in his first game with the team after just missing the final cut for Team USA, led the rally off with a walk and then went to second on a wild pitch. He took third on a groundout by Ryan Jones (Wichita State). Coleman then walked before Cesario opened the lead up for the Commmodores with a single to right field that made it 2-0. Coleman would later score on a wild pitch, and then Ruf provided a run-scoring single to left to make it a 3-0 ballgame.

     Falmouth’s first run was scored in the second. Cesario led the inning off with a single, stole second, and then scored on an RBI-double by Diego Seastrunk (Rice), who lined a ball to center that evaded the dive of Hyannis’s center fielder. He was out at second, though, trying to stretch the hit into a triple. 

© Copyright 2008 by The Enterprise - Upper Cape Cod News and Information