Walk-Off HBP Sends Braves to Fourth Straight One-Run Victory
By Mojo Hill
The Bourne Braves might make things interesting from time to time, but they’ve sure shown a knack for grinding out victories lately.
After two straight days off due to 4th of July rain, they returned to action at Doran Park on Wednesday with their second walk-off win in the last week. Not only was it their second walk-off, but it was their second walk-off free pass and their fourth straight one-run victory. Caden Bodine found himself in the right place at the right time, getting hit by a pitch to win it five days after Garrett Michel drew a walk-off walk. Bourne beat Wareham 5-4 to keep its resilient ways going.
“Any way they end with us winning is great,” Braves manager Scott Landers said. “We’ll take it.”
Good teams find ways to win, and the Braves are showing that right now. Early in the year, they fell on the short side of some close matchups, but now they’ve flipped the script. Wednesday’s victory gave them 11 wins in their last 14 games, improving their overall record to 12-8-1 as they chase Cotuit in the Cape Cod West standings.
“We keep it close, it’s more interesting. It’s a lot more fun,” said Michel, who swatted his second home run of the summer on Wednesday. “We’re on a roll. We’re gonna try to keep rolling.”
Like every game in this four-game streak, though, it didn’t get off to the smoothest beginning. Starter Bryce Cunningham struck out two in a perfect first inning, but some sloppy defense helped Wareham take an early 3-0 lead in the next two. In the second inning, Lawson Harrill reached on a clumsy dropped catch by Michel at first. Harrill stole second, then scored on a pair of wild pitches. Shortstop Jonathan Vastine committed a rare error to lead off the third, and two more runs came around to score on a double by Grant Hussey.
“We came out flat. We put ourselves in a hole,” Landers said. “I think we’re a really good club. If we beat ourselves, hopefully that’s the only way people can beat us. But we’ve been resilient for the last four games in one way or another.”
The Braves saw both the benefits and detriments of their offensive game pay off in the first two innings. They drew four walks, but were caught stealing twice as they came up empty.
After back-to-back strikeouts to start the bottom of the third, they started to slap some hits together. Vastine reached on a hustle double, and a seeing-eye single by Derek Bender got Bourne on the board. Bodine also poked a fluky hit, but Michel struck out to end the rally.
Cunningham ended up recording five more outs while walking three more batters, but he held Wareham without any earned runs. He left with the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth. Doug Kirkland replaced him, and he took just one pitch to induce an inning-ending flyout to center.
Cunningham struck out eight and walked four in his 4 2/3 innings of work. He allowed three unearned runs and nothing else.
“His secondary stuff, he was landing a lot better this start compared to the last start,” Landers said. “I thought his fastball was really good. Really, he only made one mistake — the double that scored two. But he should have been out of that inning. Other than that, he pitched great.”
The Braves got one back in the bottom of the fifth. Bryce Eblin and Vastine both slapped hits, and a wild pitch brought Eblin home to cut the deficit to 3-2.
Kirkland held the fort down in a perfect top of the sixth. The frame ended on a tremendous play up the middle by second baseman Josh Kuroda-Grauer, ranging over to his right and stealing a hit.
“I honestly didn’t think he was gonna throw it,” Landers said.
Then Michel stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the sixth. After going 0-for-2 on the night thus far, he pummeled a ball 398 feet — against a lefty, no less.
“You can’t go in there thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a lefty’ and psych yourself out,” Michel said. “You just have to go in there with the same mentality every single time. Just be a dude and grind as much as you can.”
Michel’s blast tied it with one swing after the Braves had been leaning small ball for most of the game. But they still didn’t waver from that approach. Kendall Diggs drew his second walk of the game, advanced on a perfect sacrifice bunt by Kuroda-Grauer, then scored on a single by Pete Ciuffreda.
Ciuffreda showed frustration after striking out in his previous at-bat, but he showed just as much excitement after coming through with the go-ahead hit.
“I looked up at the scoreboard and I said, ‘Hey, I at least have two left,'” Ciuffreda said. “So I was like, ‘Alright, the first two didn’t go my way. Completely wash it. You gotta treat it like a quarterback throwing an interception and coming back to score the game-winning drive.'”
With a 4-3 lead, Kirkland stayed in and faltered the advantage behind a walk and two singles. He struck out three in the inning, but a wild pitch tied the game at four apiece going into the seventh inning stretch.
The Braves left the bases loaded in the eighth, which could have been a momentum killer. But as they’ve done so often over this hot stretch, they kept fighting despite not everything going their way. Gabe Driscoll held things down on the mound over the final two innings, including a ninth inning where he worked around a walk and another error by Vastine.
The offense got right back to work in the bottom of the ninth, as Eblin singled and Vastine reached on a bunt hit. Bender lined a single into the outfield, but it was hit so hard that Eblin had to hold up at third. Up stepped up his Coastal Carolina teammate Bodine, who got hit by a pitch and prompted an anticlimactic but nonetheless exhilarating celebration in front of the mound.
“The pitcher knows that he’s got the bases loaded there, so we try our best to make him know that he’s got ’em loaded,” Ciuffreda said. “So he had nowhere to put him, and Bodine’s been swinging it. I’m sure if he put it over the plate, Bodine was gonna make him pay.”
The Braves will look to keep the victory factory churning against these same Gatemen on Thursday. They’ll take a quick drive over the bridge, just off the Cape for a 6 p.m. game.
