Rowley Rams win stormy Intertown Twilight League opener on combined no hitter
ROWLEY — Given the dark cloud the coronavirus has cast over the sport
of baseball these past few months, it's perhaps fitting that
Wednesday's Intertown Twilight League opener between the Rowley Rams and
Beverly Giants was touch and go due to thunderstorms throughout the
evening.Rain began to fall just before the first pitch, showers moved through on and off throughout the game, and just before the top of the fifth play had to be halted for 15 minutes after lightning was spotted nearby.
Yet despite it all, the players persisted. Baseball was officially back.
"We're
playing baseball, that's what's most important," said Rowley manager
Jeff Wood, whose team won 6-1 on a combined no hitter by pitchers Tim
Cashman, Kyle Greenler and Garrett Hudson. "Certainly the way we threw
the ball I have to be happy about that. Bats took a little while, we
kind of expected that, but I thought overall we played a solid game for
getting out in the middle of July for the first time all year."Despite the months-long layoff, the Rams were sharp defensively, and all three pitchers were lights out. Cashman, the former Triton and Merrimack College standout, pitched four perfect innings before giving way to Georgetown's Greenler. The Elon sophomore, who pitched 19.0 innings with a 3.79 ERA this spring before the season was canceled, threw two scoreless innings with four strikeouts despite the lightning delay interrupting his warmup.
"I've been excited all week to come back and play baseball, it's my
life basically," Greenler said. "I went out there in warmups and a
lightning bolt comes right as I'm about to start, so I have to wait a
couple more minutes before I could go, but it felt alright, just got to
get back to normal."
Hudson finished the job in the seventh,
allowing an unearned run on a walk and two fielding errors. Wood said
this was the first no hitter the Rams had recorded that he could
remember recently."It's been a while. This is grown men with metal bats, it's hard to get a no hitter in these leagues," Wood said. "Timmy Cashman, Greenler and Garrett Hudson, all three of them threw the ball really well, and under the conditions, you've got a wet mound, a wet ball, they really threw the ball well and that should be a strength of ours this year, we've got a lot of arms."
While everybody was
thrilled to be back out playing baseball despite the rain, it was clear
that many players were still rusty. Rowley only recorded three hits,
with the majority of the offense coming courtesy of Beverly's 11 walks.
After four clean innings, things came unglued for the Giants in the
fifth, when the Rams scored three runs without recording a hit thanks
to four walks and a grounder to first that resulted in two runs scoring.Rowley tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the sixth, leading off with a Joe White hit followed by five walks in the next six at bats, including three in a row with the bases loaded. Beverly got out of the jam with an inning ending double play but couldn't rally in the top of the seventh.
