Garrett Horn Turns in Strong Final Outing in Braves’ 4-3 Loss to Y-D

By Mojo Hill

All the Bourne Braves have done lately is play close contests.

They fell in another tight one Friday night, losing 4-3 to the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox in 10 innings. It was their sixth straight one-run game — the first four of which went their way. But Friday’s defeat made it two consecutive losses, dropping their record to 12-10-1.

“We lost a good game,” Bourne manager Scott Landers said. “We didn’t do much to win it. We didn’t do much to lose it.”

The game took on a different style than Thursday’s 9-8 affair, which took nearly four hours and had 19 total walks. The Braves’ offense was quieter, and a strong start from left-hander Garrett Horn kept them in it. They couldn’t make anything happen in the extra inning, though, and Y-D walked it off in the bottom half of the 10th.

Horn pitched with a fastball-heavy approach, especially in the early going. He sat at a moderate 91-92 with it and topped out at 93 — after reaching 95 mph earlier this summer — but it was effective in a scoreless first two innings.

“I gotta stick with who I am,” Horn said. “I get a lot of carry, ride, on my fastball; late life, whatever you want to call it. I can’t get away from that. I can’t try to get too fine. So I just gotta stick with who I am and know that my strength is gonna be better than their strength.”

Brady Neal took one of Horn’s fastballs deep in the third inning, which was one of the only blemishes on Horn’s line. It went 365 feet and was hit 100 mph off the bat.

The Braves’ offense, meanwhile, only had a Gage Harrelson single through the first three innings. Jonathan Vastine led off the fourth with a triple, though, right after the team fell behind 1-0. Derek Bender hit a fly ball to right that was initially too shallow to drive in a run, but Enzo Apodaca’s throw back into the infield was off line and Vastine was able to score, tying the game at one apiece.

The Braves tacked on one more to take the lead in the fifth, thanks in part to another error. Bryce Eblin nearly hit into an inning-ending double play with runners on the corners, but the throw to first went out of play and allowed the go-ahead run to score.

Horn started throwing more sliders as his outing went on. He wasn’t locating it very well at first, and he walked two batters in the fourth. But he ended the inning with a strikeout to strand two.

“It felt really good in the bullpen,” Horn said. “When I got out there, I felt a little bit out of sync for the first three innings. But the main focus was getting ahead, and using the offspeed to get ahead.”

Horn’s slider was at its sharpest in the fifth. After a leadoff strikeout, he recorded back-to-back strikeouts while getting Y-D hitters to chase in the dirt. That brought his total to seven strikeouts on the evening.

“It’s a good pitch when he’s got it,” Landers said. “He didn’t have it early, and then once he utilized it, it was really, really good.”

The Braves’ newest addition to the lineup, Nu’u Contrades out of Arizona State, drew a walk in the seventh and scored on an RBI single by Hugh Pinkney to give Bourne an insurance run. It was Pinkney’s fifth hit in his last two games after a slow start to the summer.

Horn came back out of the bottom of the seventh, becoming the first Braves starter to do so this summer. His outing ended after a leadoff double, though, with six-plus strong innings in the books. He received a warm round of applause while coming off the mound in his last start on the Cape this summer. He ended with his best performance of the season, and one of the better efforts of any Bourne pitcher in 2023.

“I told [Landers] yesterday, ‘It’s my last start. We’re low on pitchers. If the opportunity presents itself, just let ’em go,'” Horn said, indicating his willingness to stay in the game. “It’s summer ball, but we all want to win. And I want to do the best I can to help us win.”

Horn improved in each of his four starts this summer. As of now, he leads the team with in innings (18) and strikeouts (22). He’ll return to Liberty University for his junior year in hopes of continuing to improve ahead of next year’s draft.

“I want to get drafted next year, but we’ll see,” Horn said. “You never know. I just gotta live in the moment. I can’t think ahead. I can’t think about that stuff. Because when I start thinking about that stuff, that’s when everything else goes haywire. I just gotta be able to focus on the next day, the next season coming up. And hopefully it all works out in the end.”

The runner Horn left on second came in on to score on a pair of singles against reliever Matthew McShane, cutting Bourne’s lead to 3-2 in the seventh. McShane stranded two in scoring position to keep the Braves ahead for the time being, but the Red Sox scratched out a run against him to tie it in the eighth.

The Braves couldn’t ignite a late-inning rally, as they grounded into a double play in the ninth and struck out all three times in the 10th. Ryan Free got the final two outs of the ninth to send the game to an extra inning, but he allowed a walk-off sacrifice fly to send the Red Sox into a frenzy in center field.

“In the end, unluckily, it didn’t work out for us,” Horn said. “But I did everything I could.”

Bourne will return to Doran Park on Saturday for a 6 p.m. game against the Harwich Mariners.