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Orleans and Chatham to Face Off Friday

August 6, 2009

By Tyler Maland

Orleans, Mass. - A baseball purist might argue that the sport at its finest is not on display at the MLB All-Star Game, or at the major league level at all.  Rather, it might be found on the sun-soaked community ballparks up and down Cape Cod, where the best amateur ballplayers in the country gather for the chance to get noticed and continue their dream of playing professionally some day.

Two of the teams that have come to epitomize Cape Cod Baseball, and have built up a healthy rivalry along the way, are Orleans and Chatham. 

The chairs and blankets will be set up on the Eldridge Park hillside early Friday morning, as the Firebirds, who consistently lead the league in attendance and have done so again in 2009, host the Anglers for a one-game series in the first round of the playoffs Friday night at 7:00 p.m.

Orleans finished second in the Eastern Division, and will have the advantages of both momentum and home field in Friday’s game.  The Firebirds closed the regular season with two straight victories over the Anglers, one in which they scored five straight runs in a comeback win, and the other in which they smothered a Chatham comeback with a play at the plate.

Orleans has won four of its six games against Chatham this year, but neither team has blown the other away.  In their first face-off on June 21, the Anglers were down 7-1 but came back to beat the Firebirds 10-7 by scoring nine runs in the last two innings.  The loss was representative of a dismal first couple of weeks for Orleans, which started 0-4.

The Firebirds lost four straight again from June 19th to June 25th.  Aside from those two streaks, they have been one of the best teams in the league, going 25-9-2.

And when they’re hot, they’re hot.  The Firebirds won five in a row from July 10th to 13th, outscoring opponents 31-11 in that short span of time. 

To the chagrin of the rest of the league, they are in the midst of another hot streak right now, having won eight of their eleven games since July 25th.  More impressively, their last seven wins before the finale at Chatham were comeback wins, highlighted by three different walk-off victories and a go-ahead grand slam.

Chatham’s season has taken the opposite route.  The Anglers started the season 10-1, but have since gone 11-22 including a skid in which they lost nine of ten between July 17th and 28th. 

Chatham finished the season eighth in the league in hitting (.222) and ninth in pitching (3.58).

Orleans was sixth in hitting (.237) and led the league in pitching for the second straight season with a team earned run average of 2.72.  Rosters turn over almost completely from year to year, but Firebirds field manager Kelly Nicholson and pitching coach Chris Beck consistently mold the most efficient pitching staff in the league. The Firebirds walked the fewest batters, 131, for an average of 2.97 per game. 

Despite the statistical edge that may lean towards Orleans, the reality is that the opening round of the playoffs is not a lengthy series – it’s just one game.  One muffed ground ball, or mental error, or timely hit, could make all the difference. 

So that’s why we line up the chairs and blankets along the hillside, and that’s why they play the game.  Because nothing is for sure.

Well, one thing is for sure. These guys are getting noticed.