Commodores Drop Season Opener to Brewster in Twelve

Just after eight o'clock Friday night, with two outs in the bottom of the 12th inning of a 2-2 tie and the umpires on the verge of calling the game due to impending darkness, Brewster right fielder Preston Beck ripped a double that scored left fielder Tanner Nivens from first, and gave the Whitecaps a 3-2 win over the Commodores to open the 2011 Cape Cod Baseball League season.

Falmouth seemed poised to earn at least a tie when relief pitcher Taylor Sandefur struck out the first two batters of the Brewster twelfth. But Nivens worked a walk, and, stealing second when Beck doubled, scored easily on the play.

The Commodores had carried a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the 11^th, scratching a run across in their half of the inning with a walk by shortstop Eric Garcia, a sacrifice bunt by second baseman Ross Heffley, and some aggressive base running by Garcia when Brewster backstop Taylor Davis' pickoff throw to second sailed deep into center field.

But Davis quickly made up for his mistake, working a walk to lead off the bottom of the 11th, stealing second, and scoring the tying run on first baseman Jamie Bruno's single up the middle.

The tight final margin was the legacy of the starting pitchers, Brewster's Anthony Buccifero and Falmouth's Eric Anderson, who dueled without score through five innings before each surrendering a run in the sixth. Anderson scattered seven hits over six innings, not allowing damage until the last, a Davis single that drove home Nivens, who had reached on a two-base throwing error and advanced to third on a Beck grounder to short.

That evened the score after a short-lived Falmouth lead, the result of an error that allowed Garcia to reach first with one out in the top of the sixth, followed by a single to right by Heffley—the first hit off Buccifero all day—and an RBI fielder's choice by left fielder Jeremy Baltz. Hustle made the play on both ends, Garcia steaming in from second on a ball that never left the infield, Baltz barely beating out the attempted double play, which would have denied the Commodores the run.

The Commodores will look for their first win of the season at Yarmouth-Dennis on Saturday evening, before opening up at home with a doubleheader against Chatham at Fuller Field on Sunday afternoon at four.