Bourne Stumbles Into All-Star Break With 13-3 Loss to Falmouth

By Mojo Hill

The Bourne Braves are heading into the All-Star break on a sour note. They suffered their worst loss of the season on Friday, getting blown out 13-3 by the Falmouth Commodores at Guv Fuller Field. They fell behind early, and spread 10 hits throughout the night but couldn’t muster up enough offense to get back in it.

“Just a game we’re gonna put in the past. We need the All-Star break,” Braves manager Scott Landers said. “Like I told them: Get away from baseball for a few days and regroup and re-energize, and we’ll get back at it on Monday.”

Left-hander Zach Grace made his Bourne debut after a strong season at Rowan University. His brief outing was plagued by erratic control. He displayed solid stuff in the first inning and sat 90 mph, allowing a lone walk. But he walked three more and hit a batter in the second inning. The only hit against him was a costly one, a triple that drove in two runs. He exited with the bases loaded and one out.

“His slider was okay after he started landing it, but he couldn’t land his fastball for strikes,” Landers said. “He just had too many walks.”

Fellow southpaw Henry Weycker came on in relief. The Commodores scratched out two more on a sacrifice fly and a wild pitch, giving Falmouth four in the inning despite only one hit.

The ‘Dores played shoddy defense in the third and fourth innings, though Bourne got just one run out of it. Their middle infielders each made an error in the third, but Jonathan Vastine was left stranded at second. Derek Bender reached second base on an infield single and another error by the shortstop in the fourth, and he scored on a Kendall Diggs sacrifice fly to get the Braves on the board.

Falmouth immediately responded with two more on a single by Travis Bazzana after Cam Foster made a two-base throwing error.

“I thought it was really sloppy, especially on our part for the whole game,” Landers said. “We gotta clean it up. And when we come back on Monday, we’ll get it rolling.”

The Braves chipped away for one in the fifth. Bryce Eblin stayed hot, smacking yet another RBI single to drive in Gage Harrelson, who doubled. Both Eblin and Harrelson have swung much better bats as of late.

But Falmouth responded once again, with three straight baserunners and a run to greet Weycker in the bottom of the fifth. Ryan Fischer then took over for a rare relief appearance. He got tagged for three more hits and four more runs, extending Bourne’s deficit to nine. A relay throw got away from Vastine at the end of the rally, allowing a run to score all the way from first base on another hit by Bazzana.

It was 11-2 Falmouth after the disastrous five-run fifth.

Justin Lovell held down the fort for 1 2/3 innings. He left with a runner on and two outs in the seventh. Max LeBlanc issued a four-pitch walk, then surrendered a two-run triple to Travis Bazzana.

Caden Bodine provided a brief bright spot for Bourne in the eighth, swatting his first home run of the summer to left field from the right side of the plate. The switch-hitting catcher has shown impressive on-base ability, but hasn’t quite tapped into much power with the wood bat yet.

“He’s got it in there,” Landers said of Bodine’s power stroke. “The last couple days, he’s been working on it, getting some backspin and adding some lift to the baseball. It was a good swing right-handed. He usually has more power, I think, on the left side, but it was a good swing.”

Harrelson led off the ninth with his third hit in his last three at-bats. Vastine slapped a single as well, but the game ended on a 5-4-3 double play.

Landers will manage the West team in the All-Star game on Saturday with a 6 p.m. first pitch at Whitehouse Field. The Braves will return to action with a doubleheader against Wareham on Monday, starting at 4 p.m.

“I’m excited to meet some new people and watch our guys perform,” Landers said. “It’s usually a good day, so I’m excited to be there.”