Braves Fall 9-8 to Wareham in Nearly Four-Hour Affair

By Mojo Hill

After winning four straight one-run games, the Bourne Braves couldn’t quite bring their magic to Spillane Field Thursday night. They fell on the wrong side of a one-run margin this time, getting beat 9-8 by the Wareham Gatemen in a game that took nearly four hours to complete thanks to a plethora of walks and errors on both sides. The loss ended their four-game winning streak and dropped their record to 12-9-1.

The teams combined for 22 hits, 19 walks and three hit batsmen. The Braves stole 11 bases and were caught three times.

“We made some stupid baserunning blunders,” Bourne manager Scott Landers said. “It’s gonna happen, I guess. But we gotta clean that up. We gotta be smarter in certain situations. But we battled at the plate. We just gotta get through the next four days.”

The Braves fell into an immediate hole with left-hander Dalton Pence on the mound. He nearly got out of a second-and-third, no-out jam, but a two-out knock put Wareham up 2-0. A two-run homer then rapidly extrapolated that to 4-0. Pence returned to the dugout shaking his head, with echoes of “Work to do!” coming from the Bourne dugout.

The bats started chipping away in the second. Kendall Diggs led off the inning with his first double of the summer. He scored on an infield hit by Cam Foster, helped out by a throwing error from the third baseman. Adonys Guzman followed with a hit to the outfield, and Foster held up before the shortstop threw it away and he was able to glide home. The Braves sliced Wareham’s lead in half to bring it within 4-2.

Pence threw a perfect second inning with a pair of strikeouts, but briefly lost his control with three straight walks to start the third. He limited the damage, though, allowing just one additional run on a fielder’s choice. It was nearly a double play ball, but Foster hesitated before throwing to second.

The Braves drew two walks in the third, but Derek Bender was doubled off by the center fielder to end the inning.

Helped by Wareham’s control issues and poor defense, they tied it up with a three-spot in the fourth. They scored one on an error, and Bender made it 5-5 with a two-run single. Bourne drew eight walks through the first four innings as the game crawled along — now knotted up after an early 4-0 hole.

Josh Kuroda-Grauer reached on yet another error to lead off the fifth. He was caught stealing, but Sam Petersen singled and stole both second and third. Foster drew Bourne’s ninth walk before Guzman gave the Braves the lead with a sacrifice fly.

But they gave it right back in the bottom of the fifth. Pence’s outing came to an end after four innings, with five runs charged to him on four walks and five strikeouts. Jack Sullivan came on in relief, and the Gatemen immediately tied it on a single and a throwing error by Jonathan Vastine. Grant Hussey crushed an RBI double, putting Wareham up 7-6.

“He settled in and threw well after the first inning,” Landers said of Pence. “He was just up a little bit in the first inning, didn’t execute and got whacked a little bit.”

The Braves drew yet another pair of walks in the sixth but came up empty-handed. Wareham responded with an insurance run in the bottom of the frame on two singles and a sacrifice fly.

Petersen led off the seventh with his third hit of the game, then stole his fourth base of the game. He came around to score on a groundout, cutting the deficit to 8-7.

“I thought he played a great game,” Landers said. “He creates havoc on the bases. He’s a good baserunner. He played good in center field. He’s getting better and better each day.”

Sullivan stayed in for his third inning of work and immediately gave up a home run into the left field bleachers. A single and an errant pickoff throw put a runner on third with still nobody out, but a double play helped him work out of it with the Braves still down two.

The eighth inning was the only frame where Bourne did not draw a walk — but Chris Stanfield still led off with a hit by pitch. He had to leave the game after a brief discussion with Landers, though he didn’t look to be in any kind of serious pain. Gage Harrelson pinch-ran and was promptly caught stealing. The Braves scored a run anyway on singles from Diggs, Kuroda-Grauer and Foster, but they likely would have tied it if Harrelson hadn’t tried to run. Petersen was also called out for supposedly leaning into a pitch, despite having virtually no time to react in one way or another.

“Whatever,” Landers said. “It’s a call that didn’t go our way.”

Pete Ciuffreda led off the ninth inning with his fourth walk of the game, and the Braves’ 14th of the night. That was the only response they had in the final inning, though, as the game finally ended after roughly three hours and 40 minutes.

The Braves will look to bounce back against the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox on Friday at Red Wilson Field at 4:45 p.m.

“We just have to come back tomorrow and play again,” Landers said. “It’s the game of baseball. You win some, you lose some. We gotta come back and be good tomorrow.”