Baseball: Errors and walks are an old story for Porters
WHALERS 12, PORTERS 3
Errors and walks. Walks and errors.
Those self-inflicted forms of destruction are a surefire recipe for trouble. In the case of the Greenport High School baseball team, errors and walks have been the story of their season.
Coach Chris Golden was bemoaning his team’s shortcomings in those areas before Thursday’s game against Pierson/Bridgehampton. A couple of hours later, it didn’t seem as if he was feeling any better about them.
The Porters issued seven walks, hit one batter, committed six errors and, on top of that, fell behind by 7-0 in a nightmarish first inning they were never able to recover from. With its life made a little easier by the Porters’ miscues, Pierson/Bridgehampton breezed to a 12-3 victory at Robbie Costantini Field in Greenport. Charles Canavan supplied three hits and Kyle Sturmann brought in two runs with a bloop single for the Whalers (9-3, 8-0 Suffolk County League IX), who recorded their eighth straight win. Three days earlier, the defending league champions sealed a playoff spot with an 11-0 shutout of Greenport.
Eight of Pierson/Bridgehampton’s runs on Thursday were unearned.
Nick Kruel, a knuckleball pitcher who mixes in a pinpoint fastball, brought his record to 3-1 with a five-hitter. He didn’t issue a walk and had three strikeouts.
The bad inning that the Porters (1-6, 0-5) seem to run into came right at the start with Pierson/Bridgehampton’s seven-run first inning. Five of those runs were unearned thanks to three errors. The Whalers also drew three walks that inning, one by Kruel with the bases loaded.
The Porters, who have allowed 49 walks over 47 innings, pulled a run back in the bottom half of the inning. Austin Hooks launched a triple to center field and then scored on a groundout by Matt Drinkwater.
Following the rough inning, Greenport pitcher John Drinkwater did well, retiring 11 of the next 14 batters.
Then, Pierson/Bridgehampton tacked on two runs in the sixth from a run-scoring groundout by James Sherry and a run-scoring single by Aaron Schiavoni for a 9-1 cushion.
That lead expanded to 12-1 the following inning. With the bases loaded, pinch hitter Ulysses Poulmantis lined into a double play, but two of his teammates, Jack Fitzpatrick and Henry Kotz, managed to score on the play. The next batter, pinch hitter Dylan Willingham, ripped a single to bring in another run.
The Porters pulled back a pair of runs in their half of the inning from a fielder’s choice by Max Eggimann and a groundout by freshman Jake Skrezek for his first career run batted in.
