Bourne Shut Out by Cotuit For Second Straight Home Game

The same place, the same time, the same result.

The Bourne Braves returned to Doran Park on Tuesday for just their second home game of the summer. Both have been on Tuesday, and both have been against the Cotuit Kettleers.

Despite an offensive breakout Monday night in Chatham, this Tuesday was a similar story as last Tuesday. It was almost a night to remember, but for all the wrong reasons: The Braves didn’t even record a hit until the eighth inning. They narrowly avoided an even uglier stain on their resume, but they still fell 3-0 and dropped to 2-6-1 on the season. In 18 innings at home this year, they are yet to score a run, and it’s all been against these same Kettleers.

“You’re not gonna win if you don’t score any runs,” Braves manager Scott Landers said. “We just didn’t hit well. I tip my cap to their pitchers. They threw really well. Threw strikes and kept us off balance all night.”

For Bourne, starter Logan Evans dealt with lots of traffic but kept the Braves in the game. Third baseman Joey Loynd helped him out with a quick-reaction barehanded play to end the first inning. Evans worked around a leadoff double in the second, and Kodey Shojinaga started a 4-6-3 double play that got him out of a runners-on-the-corners, one-out jam in the third.

“I didn’t feel like I had my fastballs in to lefties,” Evans said. “But besides that, I felt like everything else was working. Wish I could have had more swing-and-miss, but I got a lot of ground balls, so I was pretty happy about that.”

The Braves had some baserunners of their own in the first two innings but couldn’t scratch anything across. Pete Ciuffreda and Derek Bender both walked in the first, and Loynd was hit by a pitch in the second. A double play helped Cotuit escape unscathed.

More great defense helped Evans blank the Kettleers in the fourth. He issued a leadoff walk, and the runner stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch, still with nobody out. But after a strikeout and a comebacker, shortstop Paul Tammaro III made a slick play to end the inning. He got the runner by less than a step, with Bender leaning out for an impressive stretch and scoop at first base.

“It’s awesome having a great defense,” Evans said. “For me as a pitcher, I have confidence that I can just go and attack the zone, and then let them make plays behind me. It’s really cool to have that.”

The Braves’ good fortune ran out in the fifth. Evans got the first two outs, but after a walk and a bloop single put runners on the corners, the first run of the game came home on a wild pitch. Evans ended the inning with a strikeout, but not before a run fell just out of his grasp.

“I thought we pitched well. We had a blunder with the first run,” Landers said. “Logan gave us a really good start. Kept us there.”

Evans completed five solid innings for the Braves, limiting the Kettleers to just that one run. He made progress after his uneven debut against Harwich in a game that was shortened due to weather.

“I just tried to improve upon using my slider more,” Evans said. “I felt like if I could keep those hitters true to maybe two planes instead of just staying on fastball-cutter, it would really help me out, and today it really did.”

Meanwhile, they fell into a rut with the bats. Cotuit starter Tucker Novotny threw 4 2/3 hitless innings, retiring the last 11 he faced before having to exit for pitch count reasons.

Chase Hopewell continued to mow Bourne hitters down in relief. He kept the combined no-hitter alive until one out in the eighth, when Kavi Caster poked one up the middle to break it up. Braves fans could take a sigh of relief, at the very least having the solace of not being on the wrong side of history.

Caster’s hit ended a stretch of 19 consecutive Bourne hitters retired. Novotny and Hopewell — the same two pitchers who helped shut out Bourne last week — combined to strike out eight in 7 1/3 innings of work.

“They pitched great. Same guys both games. So yeah, we haven’t figured them out yet,” Landers said. “But if they’re back in there against us next time, I guess we’ll have to figure it out.”

Ryan Fischer struck out three of the first four batters he faced out of the bullpen for Bourne. The Kettleers rallied for two runs in the seventh against him though, as Brett Bateman’s fourth hit of the night stretched Cotuit’s lead to 3-0.

Fischer bounced back with a perfect eighth, collecting six total strikeouts in a three-inning performance.

“He mixed well. He threw strikes,” Landers said. “We’ve been working on his offspeed stuff for strikes. He was primarily a fastball guy coming into the summer. But I thought he pitched outstanding.”

Shojinaga turned Bourne’s hit total into a crooked number with a single in the ninth, but Bender hit into a double play to end the Braves’ second home shutout. They may have won a championship last summer with this place as their home park, but they haven’t found any offense in front of the hometown crowds yet.

Bourne will continue this five-game homestand with a matchup against the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

“We haven’t played Y-D yet, so we’ll see what they got,” Landers said.