This Week in Baseball

Orleans Clinches East Regular-Season Title
Six Teams Remain in Hunt for Second Place

ORLEANS -- The Orleans Cardinals (26-13-1; 53 points) clinched first place in the East last night at Eldredge Park with a 4-2 win over the second place Brewster Whitecaps (20-16-4; 44 points), but the Whitecaps, Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox (20-16-4; 41 points) and Harwich Mariners (19-21-0; 38 points) remain in contention for the second playoff spot.

Notre Dame's Chris Neisel is slated to get the starting nod tonight versus the Chatham A's and hopes to keep the Falmouth Commodores in contention for second place in the West. See Playoffs Story.
Sean Walsh/CCBL 2002

There are four regular season games remaining and with each win a team gains two points, one point for a tie.

While Cotuit lost to Bourne 4-2 in a heated game at Coady Field, and Wareham and Falmouth each gained points in the West Division standings with respective wins, Cotuit remained safe in first place ahead by nine points of Wareham. Wareham (20-20-0; 40 points), Falmouth (18-20-2; 38 points) and Bourne (15-21-4; 34 points) each remained in the hunt for a playoff spot in the West following Friday night's (Aug. 2) games.

Both Orleans and Cotuit have clinched home field advantage for the first round of division playoffs, set to begin Thursday, Aug. 8. The winner of the best of three interdivisional series advances to the Championship series, also to be played in the best of three format.

Cotuit clinched first place honors with a 4-1 win over Chatham at Veterans Field on Tuesday, July 30, but Orleans may have foreshadowed its potential playoff pitching strength in a 2-1 win over Cotuit at Lowell Park on Wednesday, July 31.

Wareham takes on Bourne at Coady Field this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. (schedule change). A Wareham win would eliminate Bourne from playoff contention. A Falmouth win today versus Chatham and a Wareham loss would keep Bourne in the running and tie Falmouth and Wareham for second place.

In the East tonight, a Brewster loss at Harwich and a Y-D win over Orleans would give the Mariners two additional points in the standings but would only serve to decrease the gap between the second, third and fourth place teams, making it a one-point difference between Brewster, Y-D and Harwich.

Both the last place Chatham A's (East) and Hyannis Mets (West) have been mathematically eliminated from postseason contention. The A's are 16-22-2 (34 points) and the Mets are 13-24-3 (29 points).

Falmouth plays at Chatham tonight (Saturday, Aug. 3) at 7 p.m.; Orleans travels to Y-D at 5 p.m.; Hyannis is at Cotuit at 5 p.m.; Brewster plays at Harwich at 7 p.m.; and Wareham will travel to Bourne to play at 4:30 p.m.