Braves Hold On to Beat Hyannis 8-6 in First Win of 2023
The Bourne Braves had gone 18 1/3 consecutive innings without scoring a run.
It took them only one pitch to change that on Friday.
“I think we tried not to keep it weighing on our shoulders,” said Braves outfielder Jackson Castillo, who had four hits in the contest. “But game after game, it gets a little more frustrating.”
Pete Ciuffreda, the latest contestant in Bourne’s revolving door of leadoff hitters, smacked the first offering he saw over the scoreboard in right field at McKeon Park, then simply gazed and watched it fly. It was the first run for Bourne since the fifth inning of Monday’s game against Orleans.
But these Braves didn’t have the look of a team that hadn’t scored in four days. They jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead and beat the Hyannis Harbor Hawks in an 8-6 back-and-forth affair, earning their first victory of the young summer. They improved to 1-4-1 while Hyannis fell to 3-3.
“We came on strong in the first couple innings and jumped [starter Mitch Harris],” Braves manager Scott Landers said. “That was the game plan for today: Just get on fastballs and hit ’em hard. And we did that. We executed.”
After Ciuffreda’s leadoff homer, the Braves managed to put up a three-spot in the first. Kodey Shojinaga walked, then scored on a pair of wild pitches and a groundout. Joey Loynd and Castillo each recorded a two-out hit, gifting Bourne the offense it had been so desperately searching for.
“I think it was just some of the early-work stuff with Coach [Jarrod] Saltalamacchia and everybody else,” Castillo said. “Just picking their minds and what works with them, and just trying to slow things down and get our swings off.”
Paul Tammaro III led off the second inning with an infield single, and he came home on a two-out hit from Shojinaga. The Braves already had a 4-0 advantage while many fans were still settling in their seats.
“That was huge. A bunch of those were with two outs,” Landers said. “We just came out swinging, had a little more confidence and weren’t getting ourselves into bad counts.”
The evening was off to a great start for Bourne, along with its left-handed starter, Garrett Horn. He struck out the side in the first inning, and issued just a one-out walk in the second. But things quickly took a turn in the bottom of the third. After a solo shot got Hyannis on the board, Horn issued back-to-back walks, and then surrendered a game-tying three-run homer. Before the inning, the Harbor Hawks were yet to hit a homer this summer — they hit two in the frame to hang a four-spot on Bourne.
A win wasn’t going to come easily.
“He just didn’t command, and got behind hitters that can sit on fastball,” Landers said of Horn’s outing. “They didn’t have to respect his offspeed stuff because he wasn’t landing it.”
After finally getting clutch two-out hits in the first two innings, the Braves’ offense left the go-ahead run in scoring position in the fourth and fifth. Kavi Caster worked a fantastic plate appearance to work a walk out of an 0-2 count, but he was left 90 feet away from scoring in the fourth. Garrett Michel ended a four-at-bat strikeout streak with a double in the fifth, but Arnold recorded three strikeouts in the inning to strand him on second. The Braves’ previous demons threatened to spoil their early fortune.
Castillo and Caster hit back-to-back doubles in the sixth, with two Harbor Hawks outfielders converging in an ugly collision. After an injury delay, right fielder Ian Petrutz had to exit the game, while center fielder Zack Ehrhard stayed in. Petrutz was taken away on a stretcher.
With runners on second and third and one out, Tammaro III laid down a bunt, but Hyannis nabbed Castillo with the force at the plate. Bourne was on the edge of leaving the go-ahead run in scoring position for the third straight inning. But catcher Nolan Watson came through with his first hit of the summer, nearly hitting a home run but settling for a two-run double to put the Braves on top. They tacked on a third run thanks to a balk and took a 7-4 lead.
Griffin Stieg gave up a homer in the bottom of the sixth, but worked out of a bases-loaded jam to keep Bourne up by a pair. He struck out three and walked two in the inning.
The Braves loaded the bases in the seventh and had a chance to blow it open, but Watson couldn’t replicate his earlier heroics and popped out to keep the margin at 7-5.
Stieg threw a quick and easy seventh, but his magic ran out in the eighth. The first two batters reached, and a double that nearly left the yard cut the Bourne lead to 7-6. The Harbor Hawks had runners on second and third with still nobody out, looking to hand the Braves a devastating collapse.
But Joe Vogatsky came up huge, retiring three straight batters to keep Bourne in the lead by the skin of its teeth. Sitting in the mid-90s, Vogatsky has thrown some of the hardest pitches in the Cape this summer.
“I probably should have gone to him a little earlier,” Landers said. “He came in and did a great job. We needed two punchouts, and he gave them to us.”
The Braves scratched across an insurance run in the top of the ninth, and Vogatsky took care of the rest. He struck out two in a perfect ninth inning to cap the 8-6 win. It was all smiles on the Bourne sideline after the game, with the relief of the team’s first victory settling in.
The Braves will return to Doran Park for their second home game of the summer on Saturday at 6 p.m. against the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, barring the potential rain in the forecast.
