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Orleans Grabs Three Points and Another Dramatic Win
August 1, 2009
By Tyler Maland
GAME 1: Orleans 2, Wareham 2 (9 Innings)
In Game 1, each team got outstanding pitching – Orleans from Matt Packer (Virginia), and Wareham from Cole Green (Texas). The game, scheduled for seven innings, was called a 2-2 tie after nine.
Packer went 6.2 innings, and allowed three hits and two earned runs. He walked two and struck out nine, including eight of nine batters in one stretch. Green had a nearly identical line; he also pitched seven innings, gave up two runs and struck out nine.
The Firebirds got to Green early on when Gary Brown (CS Fullerton) and Kevin Muno (San Diego) led off the game with back-to-back singles. After a sacrifice bunt to move the runners over, Steve Selsky (Arizona) singled in Brown for a 1-0 lead. Two batters later, Devin Scott Lohman (Long Beach St.) hit an RBI single of his own to score Muno and put his team up by two.
Wareham tied the game in the bottom of the third inning on a two-run homer by Connor Rowe (Texas), his second of the year, but that was all they would get.
Packer, a reliable member of the Firebirds bullpen for the majority of the season, has been impressive in his first two starts, both of which came against the Gatemen. On July 24th, the left-hander made his first start of the year against the Gatemen and allowed no runs in five innings of a 2-1 loss.
The game started late to begin with, and the umpiring crew called it a tie after nine innings so that there would be time to play the second game.
GAME 2: Orleans 6, Wareham 5
Orleans has recently become accustomed to clutch two-out base hits that spark comeback wins. It got a little more of the same in Game 2 Saturday night, as Devin Scott Lohman hit a 3-run triple in the sixth and Jeremy Gould (Duke) hit a 2-run double in the seventh – both with two outs – to help the Firebirds come back from a 4-1 deficit to defeat Wareham 6-5.
The Orleans starter, Jorge Reyes (Oregon St.), came into the game with a 0.63 ERA in four starts. He was characteristically dominant in the first four innings, but gave up three runs in the fifth, all of which may have been prevented if not for a dropped third strike that put the leadoff man on and got the wheels spinning for the Gatemen offense, which got a sacrifice fly and an RBI single later in the inning.
Wareham, then, had a 4-1 lead and its own dominant pitcher on the mound. Brandon Workman (Texas) gave up a homer to Selsky in the first inning, but was unhittable for a long stretch after that, retiring 15 of 16 batters from the first to sixth inning.
With two outs in that sixth inning, however, Workman got into a jam and the Firebirds did their damage. He sandwiched a hit between two walks before Lohman hit his bases-clearing triple, an opposite field line drive to the gap in right-center that tied the game at four. Workman was pulled after the triple, and ended up with 5.2 innings pitched, five hits, four earned runs, three walks and eight strikeouts. Wareham reliever Josh Slaats (Hawaii) finished off the sixth.
Wareham made another grab at the momentum in the bottom of the sixth when Jake Lemmerman (Duke) hit a solo shot to deep left field to end Reyes’s night and give the Gatemen a 5-4 lead.
But Slaats pitched the seventh inning for Wareham, and after getting the first two outs ran into trouble of his own. He walked Danny Muno (Fresno St.) and Selsky before Gould hit his double to the left field wall. Both runners scored and Orleans was up 6-5 in a game that, without just two hits, it could have trailed 5-1.
Brett Weibley (Kent St.) got the win for Orleans, getting the last two outs of the sixth and holding Wareham scoreless in the seventh. Weibley gave up a leadoff walk and subsequent sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the last inning, but struck out the next two batters to end the game.
Selsky finished the game 2-for-2 with the homer, two walks, and three of the six Firebirds runs. Gould was 3-for-3 with a sacrifice bunt.
Orleans picks up three points on the day, and moves to 22-16-2. The Firebirds will travel to Cotuit for a 4:30 p.m. game Sunday afternoon. Wareham is now 18-17-6, and will host Falmouth on Sunday at 5:00 p.m.