Right Field Fog – August 17, 2012
Surely this was the end. The magic would not — could not — come back for another encore.
The Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox were in control. It was their game. Sure, Wareham tied it, but Y-D jumped right back in front. And then Robert Pehl blasted his second home run of the day. Wareham was trying to keep it close, and here was Pehl, jogging the bases again, pulling his team away with every step. When he reached the plate, his teammates may as well have put a crown on his head. The playoff MVP puts the finishing touch on a championship.
But.
There was always a but with the 2012 Wareham Gatemen. For a long time it was a negative. They can really hit, we said, but their pitching just isn’t there. They mash the ball, but they live and die by the home run.
And then, all of a sudden, the buts started popping up in a different context. Falmouth had its pitching lined up, but Wareham rolled. Bourne took control, but Wareham pushed through.
Most of all — time and again over the last two weeks — it was this: Wareham trailed, but came back. Six times it happened, three at the end of the regular season and three more in the playoffs.
Magic. Somehow, it didn’t run out.
Pehl’s eighth inning home run gave Y-D a 5-2 lead in game three of the Cape Cod Baseball League championship series. Wareham was down to its last three outs. Preston Hatcher had retired six in a row in relief of Alex Gonzalez, who kept the Gatemen at bay with 11 strikeouts. Hatcher would have to go through the middle of Wareham’s order, but on this day, maybe it wouldn’t be quite as tough. That was to be the story, after all. Someone had finally put the clamps on the Gatemen’s big four.
But.
No. 3 hitter Kyle Schwarber stepped in. He was 0-for-3 with three strikeouts. He hadn’t looked good on any of them. Hatcher fell behind 2-0 but worked back to a full count. Schwarber smashed the next pitch over the fence in right-center field. It was 5-3.
There was still a long way to go. Joey DeNato, a Cape League veteran, relieved Hatcher and used two pitches to record the first out. The Red Sox needed just two more.
But.
Daniel Palka chopped the first pitch he saw back up the middle. Mott Hyde stepped in next and fell behind 1-2.
And then he hit a moonshot. It went high and deep and it just kept going, and the higher it went, the louder the crowd got. It landed somewhere in the trees. The game was tied.
Y-D still had life. Bryan Verbitsky came on and got his team out of the inning quickly. The Red Sox then put a runner on in the bottom of the ninth as Sean Dwyer singled.
But.
Colby Suggs, who had given up the home run to Pehl, pitched with new life. He struck out two in the ninth and ended it with a fly-out. In the 10th, Verbitsky struck out the first batter but Ryan Sullivan worked a walk to bring up Schwarber, the rally starter from an inning before.
This time, he did it again, belting a 1-2 pitch over the fence in left-center and giving his team the lead. Before the celebration could even die down, Tyler Horan crushed a home run into the backyard of the house beyond the right field woods. Wareham led 8-5.
Suggs came out for the bottom of the 10th and struck out the first batter. Carlos Asuaje followed with a solo home run, making it a two-run game, but there would be no more. Two straight flyouts to Cole Sturgeon ended the game and touched off a wild celebration. It was Wareham’s first championship since 2002, and the Gatemen reveled in it.
It will take people a while to wrap their heads around this. Some players have already left. They’ll drive through the night, wondering what just happened.
We can say right now that it was classic. It was crazy. It was Y-D’s game, but then it wasn’t.
It was Wareham’s championship.