Published in the August 23, 2018 edition
By DAN PAWLOWSKI
MELROSE — Back at Morelli Field on Monday, where the first game of the Intercity League was so promising for the Wakefield Merchants five days before, the Watertown Reds won their third game in a row, to claim the five-game series 3-1.
The comeback, 7-5 win for Wakefield in game one indicated a tense, close margin in the games to follow, but Watertown’s offense reached a new stratosphere, specifically in Friday’s game two at their home Victory Field (16-3) and Monday’s game four (13-0). Those two games were sandwiched around a terrific game three at Walsh Field, in which the Reds scored two runs in the 6th to take a 4-3 lead that the Merchants couldn’t erase.
The Reds were powered by the long ball as they hit six homers in the four games, led in large part by a four-dinger game two as Will Brennan, Logan Gillis, Dan Chaisson and Jake Miller all left Victory Field.
The Merchants were led by Bobby Losanno, Anthony Cecere and Scott Searles who each had two hits and an RBI.
Domenic Nardone and Brandon Bartlett couldn’t contain the Reds, giving up a combined 12 hits and 11 earned runs in 3.2 innings.
The Merchants quickly put that game behind them as the two teams fought for a 2-1 series lead in game three at Walsh on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
Wakefield got a quality start out of Mike Andrews (7 IP, 10 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 SO) and the Merchants got to Watertown ace Matt Horan (6.2 IP, 9 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 6 SO) as well as any team in the ICL had all season. Horan, who uniquely had the lowest ERA in the league this season (1.27) and the most innings pitched (60.2), hadn’t given up more than seven hits in a game this year.
Watertown’s offense came out firing again, loading the bases on an error, a picture-perfect bunt and a shallow single to right. Andrews got Gillis to ground to Chris Butler at third who got the force at home for the first out. Dan Chaisson followed with a sac fly to right, but Andrews limited the damage with a big strikeout against the red-hot Miller to get out of it with just a 1-0 deficit.
The Merchants got to Horan in the bottom of the 2nd inning with two runs to regain the lead. Wakefield native Anthony Cecere started off his great day (2-for-4, 1 RBI) with a bomb to right-center that resulted in a leadoff triple. Scott Searles, who tends to be the hitter most Merchants fans want to see at the plate during a big moment, hit an RBI single up the middle to tie it. Mike Sorrentino followed with a base hit, and Butler put down a perfect bunt in-between the mound and third base, forcing a hurried throw to first that sailed high to score Searles. With runners at second and third and no outs, Horan buckled down, getting Joe Barry to groundout to third, striking out Luke Pilat and getting Losanno to ground to short to end the threat.
Barry made a great throw behind the plate in the 3rd to catch Ben Johnston stealing, halting the momentum of his leadoff single.
Wakefield got one more in the bottom of the 3rd, as Dillon Koster barreled up a double and Cecere later drove him in with a single to make it 3-1.
The Reds got a run back in the 4th when Miller tripled and Mike Samko hit a sac fly.
Andrews and Horan both found a groove in the middle of this game.
Andrews got out of a jam in the 5th, after a walk, a single and a sacrifice bunt put runners at 2nd and 3rd. Merchants manager Dave Ellegood elected to walk the dangerous Brennan, loading the bases for Gillis. Andrews forced a perfect grounder to Ryan Collins at second who flipped to shortstop Koster for one, who zipped it to Sorrentino at first for an inning-ending double play.
The Reds made their move in the top of the 6th, finally getting more than one run against Andrews. After Miller hit a one-out single, Samko smoked an RBI triple to right, tying the game 3-3. The Reds then executed a pefect suicide squeeze with Justin Forman putting a bunt down the line as Samko broke for home. While any kind of squeeze is rare to see these days, a safety squeeze is much more common. Holding the runner until the bunt is down leaves much more room for error. Forman needed to put the ball in play with the suicide call, and he did just that, forcing a great play from Andrews amongst the chaos who still managed to get to the bunt and make a spinning throw to first for an out. He would later get out of the inning on a grounder to short.
Horan, feeling the urgency of a clean inning, responded by striking out the side in the bottom of the 6th.
Watertown was cut down on another bases loaded, inning-ending double play in the top of the 7th, this time, Koster to Collins to Sorrentino, setting up the Merchants with one last chance.
The bottom of the 7th started off with the top of the order as Losanno, who had a tough time against Horan all day, proved why he was the ICL hit king again this year, putting down a bunt that he legged out. Unfortunately, Losanno was gunned out at second trying to steal with Koster at the dish. Koster singled and took second and third on two balls in the dirt. Horan got Collins swinging for his last batter of the day as the Reds turned to Max Meier to face Cecere who was on Horan all day. “Cess” put a good swing on it but flew out to center to end a wild game.
The Merchants clearly ran out of emotional and physical vitality in that game three, as the Reds cruised on Monday, riding a nine-run 2nd inning to beat Wakefield 13-0.
Evan Chrispitopolus and Mike Untract gave up 15 hits and 11 earned runs in four innings. The big Chaisson led the way, going 3-for-4 with four RBIs including his second home run of the series. Gillis and Johnston combined for four hits and five RBIs.
The Merchants couldn’t muster much against Worth Walrod (4 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 SO), Pat Maher and Dan Haverty as Cecere and Sorrentino were the only players to pick up hits.
In the end, it was a tough three-game swing to go out on, but the Merchants had a great season, finishing second in the league with a 17-10-1 record.
The No. 1 seeded Lexington Blue Sox barely beat Alibrandis 1-0 in the deciding game five last night. The Blue Sox and Reds will play game one of the championship series at Morelli tonight at 8 p.m.