Brewster Can’t Hold Onto 5-0 Lead in 6-5 Defeat in Wareham

By: Koki Riley

WAREHAM, M.A. – “We literally gave this game away,”
 
Those were the words of Brewster Whitecaps (12-13-1) head coach Jamie Shevchik following his teams collapse from a 5-0 lead to a 6-5 loss on Friday night in Wareham.
 
The Wareham Gatemen (16-11-1), atop the Western Division heading into the night, scored six unanswered runs in the final three frames with only one hit, a solo home run from Adrian Del Castillo (Miami FL), that left the infield.
 
The rest of Wareham’s offense came on walks, Brewster errors and, in the ninth inning, bunts.
 
It all started in the bottom of the seventh inning. After Brewster had tacked on two more runs to take a five-run advantage, Del Castillo’s solo shot quickly cut the Whitecaps lead to four.
 
Brewster starting pitcher Mason Black (Lehigh) then came out of the game after walking the next batter after Del Castillo’s solo shot. Despite the loss, Black was superb, throwing six scoreless frames before being charged with a pair of runs after not recording an out in the seventh.
 
When the wheels really started falling off the bus for the Whitecaps came in the next few at bats.
 
Seth Lonsway (Ohio State), in for relief of Black, walked three of the next four batters faced. All three runners eventually came home to score and to make matters worse, an error from Brewster catcher Christian Molfetta (Stanford) on a misfired throwback to first base opened the floodgates even more.
 
Once Lonsway’s outing was finished the score was just 5-4 Whitecaps with the tying run at third base and two outs.
 
Billy McKay (UCF), in relief of Lonsway, allowed the game tying run to the very first batter he faced. A hard-hit groundball to shortstop that was fielded by Gage Workman (Arizona State) but was too far in the hole to throw out the speedy Darren Baker (California) at first.
 
Tie ballgame.
 
From that point on, the Whitecaps were toast.
 
“We were flat. Once we gave up the lead it sucked the life out of these guys,” Shevchik said.
 
Two frames later, in the ninth, Wareham only needed an infield single, two bunts and another Whitecaps error to win the game.
 
But in reality, the game was over two innings earlier.
 
“When you’ve got a five-run lead you can work through an error here and the but you can’t work through free passes,” Shevchik said. “That’s how you lose baseball games.”
 
Brewster travels to Falmouth on Saturday night for their third matchup of the summer against the Commodores. First pitch in Falmouth is at 6 p.m.

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