Gatemen finish protested game, lose 6-5 versus Harbor Hawks
July 18, 2018 8:35 pm | by Andrew Lang
Gatemen finish protested game, lose 6-5 versus Harbor Hawks
No Image Available
HYANNIS – In a game that started 10 days ago, the Hyannis Harbor Hawks finally completed their win against the Wareham Gatemen winning by the score of 6-5, finishing the protested game from July 8.
After Wareham successfully won their protest, the game resumed play in the top of the seventh inning with one out. Pavin Parks, the man at the center of the protest, finally re-entered as the DH and was back in his spot in the lineup. Initially, Parks was a DH, then entered to pitch, and tried to re-enter as a hitter back in the DH spot. This is allowed in the NCAA, but not in the MLB. On July 8, Parks was not allowed to re-enter and that is where Sneddon protested. To read more from that day,
click here.
Luke Roskam had the best offensive game for Wareham, recording three hits (via Caroline O’Connor).
On a 2-2 count, Parks gave one a ride to right field and nearly tied the game up 6-6. The ball hooked and stayed to the right of the pole, for a foul ball. Parks ended up striking out in the at bat and Jakob Goldfarb popped out to first to end the inning.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, another controversy ensued as Wareham almost protested again. Joey Baran went to enter the game to pitch for Wareham, but he was not allowed. The umpiring crew, Hyannis’ manager Chad Gassman, and Don Sneddon circled up for a conference and talked about the decision for quite some time.
In the end, Baran was not allowed to enter the game because he was not on the roster when the game initially took place.
“Our commissioner ruled, and I don’t know where and how because I have not seen anything in print, that a player has to be on the roster at the time of the game,” Sneddon said. “The quote was time stands still my quote is that is not true.”
To make things even stranger, Pavin Parks, who was back in the DH at this point, came back in the came to pitch for the second time.
Parks worked a scoreless seventh, striking out the side, and also worked a scoreless eighth. In total, Parks worked 2.1 innings in the game, however he pitched in the fifth, seventh and eighth but not in the sixth inning.
“Our pitcher [Parks] did a great job. The most upsetting thing is we burned a pitcher,” Sneddon said. “He’s a competitor right from stage one so we had no problems putting him in, that just wasn’t the plan.”
In the top of the eighth, Wareham had a chance to comeback, but blew their opportunity.
Luke Roskam and Isaac Collins began the inning with back-to-back singles bringing Oliver Dunn up to the plate with a chance to move the runners over into scoring position. Dunn took strike one before fouling off his first attempt for strike two.
Dunn wound up striking out as did the next two Gatemen hitters Jeremy Ydens and Sahid Valenzuela.
“We had our chances right at the end there. We struck out five times and they used their best reliever and we didn’t make it happen. We couldn’t get the bunt down and get the ball in play,” Sneddon said.
Dylan Thomas, the man on the mound for Hyannis, closed out the game in the ninth recording a 1-2-3 and picked save number eight on the summer. Thomas wound up striking out six hitters over the final 2.2 innings of the game.
With the win, the Harbor Hawks move back into first place and have 38 points, while Wareham sits a point back at 37.
Following the completion of this game, the Gatemen traveled a half hour up the road to play their regularly scheduled game against the Brewster Whitecaps at 5 p.m.
“That is up to these players, short term memory. It’s not a problem for me because I’m old and I have short term memory. I don’t remember what happened 10 minutes ago. They are going to have to get ready to play another ballgame.”
Final: Harbor Hawks 6, Gatemen 5
Next: The Gatemen (18-12-1) play again today at 5 p.m. against the Whitecaps (8-21-3) in Brewster.
