Baseball is such a great game. While it might seem to be all about the pitcher and batter, there’s so much else in play. Every pitch and every swing produces a reaction and a responsibility from every player either in the field or on the bases. And when, as a team, you are swinging the bats well and running the bases aggressively and making the plays in the field, you feel invincible. Unfortunately, Watertown Baseball isn’t at that happy place at the moment, and it showed last night as the Raiders lost to Arlington 14-0 at Victory Field.
Watertown finished their April schedule this week with losses on Monday at home to Reading and Wednesday on the road to Winchester. Good riddance to April! Hope was in the air, though. One, a turn of the calendar to a new month would bring better results. Two, last year’s starting catcher, Andrew Reilly, returned to the lineup Thursday night after sitting out April with an injury. And, three, Watertown’s best pitcher to date, Lucas Pizzuto was on the mound. Arlington countered with a lefty with good stuff – a sneaky fastball, a sweeping curveball thrown from different arm slots, and a change up.
Optimism “left the building” quickly though, as Pizzuto lasted only 8 batters while giving up 5 runs. The first inning was a peek into the state of the Raiders nine at the moment – not cohesive, not making the fundamental plays, not communicating – and in baseball, there’s very little room for error. Speaking of errors, Watertown committed two official ones in the inning, and a couple of unofficial ones as well, on top of a balk, two walks and two stolen bases. Amongst all that Arlington hit two balls hard in the inning, one that just alluded Adam Wainwright in right field and ended up being a two-run home run, and a triple by the eight hitter that if fielded cleanly might have only been a double. Peter Pavlides came on in relief with two outs and got the ninth hitter of the inning to fly out to right.
Pavlides pitched four innings of solid relief, three of them giving up no runs on one hit. In the fourth he gave up two runs which included two more Watertown errors. In the meantime, through five innings Watertown bats were stymied by the Arlington left hander. He struck out at least one batter every inning, allowed only three hits (Jayden Pineda, Emilio Berndt and Jason Ciulla), and one of them he immediately picked off at first. In the top of the sixth, Jayden Pineda relied Pavlides on the mound and on this night struggled. He faced a barrage of Arlington hits and stolen bases and lethargic play behind him to the tune of seven runs, six hits and twelve batters Watertown went down quietly in the sixth against an Arlington reliever. Game over. Arlington 14, Watertown 0.
Watertown has a good team in the dugout and just needs to find its mojo, and hopefully when the Raiders return to action Tuesday May 6 at Burlington, it will and put an end to a five-game losing streak! On Thursday May 8, Watertown will complete a suspended game with Wilmington and then play a regularly scheduled game with Wilmington at Victory Field at 7 p.m.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 R H E
Arlington 5 0 0 2 0 7 14 11 0
Watertown 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 4