Sports

Baseball: Ospreys make good use of their new bats

OSPREYS 18, BREAKERS 9

Before the North Fork Ospreys took batting practice on Monday, their general manager, Jeff Standish, dropped off a fresh new batch of baseball bats for his players. One of those players, Ryan Mahoney, examining one of the bats closely, offered his opinion that there were hits in those bats.

How right he was.

Later that evening, those bats helped the Ospreys churn out 18 runs and 21 hits — both season-high totals — for an 18-9 pounding of the Southampton Breakers at Jean W. Cochran Park in Peconic. Not a bad way to head into the three-day all-star break. The Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League All-Star Game will be played Wednesday night at Baseball Heaven in Yaphank. 

The Ospreys (17-16-1) currently hold what would be the fourth and final playoff spot, but the Sag Harbor Whalers (14-19-1) are three games behind them.

For all the hitting on display, the first six innings were about Frank Moscatiello more than anyone else. The Ospreys’ all-star pitcher faced 25 batters and struck out a season-high 13 of them. He did not allow the first of the two hits against him until the fifth inning when Matt DiLeo led off by knocking a bad-hop single off third baseman Bobby Honeyman’s glove. But Moscatiello made up for it moments later, picking off DiLeo at first.

The hard-throwing Moscatiello did not give up an earned run over the course of his six innings, lowering his earned run average to 1.26.

Meanwhile, the hits kept coming off the Ospreys’ new bats. James Morisano, the designated hitter with a .345 batting average, had four of them. Kyle Colletta, Tyler Houston and Austin Guzzo rang out three hits apiece. Guzzo clubbed his first home run of the season. Houston and Peter Papcun drove in three runs each. Altogether, nine Ospreys managed at least one hit.

Five of Southampton’s runs came from Joe Poduslenko’s bat. Poduslenko homered twice, the second one being a grand slam in the ninth. An inning earlier, Poduslenko and Rob Moore produced back-to-back homers.

The Breakers are 13-20-1.

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