Walpole Legion Baseball Team's Bats Too Much for Franklin

As Franklin Post 75 (5-4-1, 11 points) took the field for the top of the seventh inning against Walpole Post 104 (7-4-0 14 points), everyone for the most part expected one last inning of baseball Tuesday night in Franklin.

Moments later, the members of Post 75 began to return to the dugout as team manager Ryan Jette made his intention to protest the result clear.

While the umpire called the game officially at 8:02 p.m., two minutes after the league’s curfew, others had an unofficial time of approximately 7:49 p.m, 13 minutes ahead of the actual time.

Without a seventh inning to play, Walpole was edited with an 11-7 win over Franklin in the six-inning affair.

It only took two innings for Post 104 to build a monstrous 10-0 lead over Post 75. With a 4-0 lead after the first inning and six more runs coming in the second inning, Walpole took advantage of a rattled Franklin pitching staff as the runs came fast and often in the early innings.

“Going forward that’s something we want to improve on is attacking the top notch number ones,"  Walpole coach Ralph White said. “Our seven wins we probably averaged 7-8 runs.”

A single by Dan King got Walpole on the board in the top of the first inning, as it was enough to bring John Adams home. A double by Sean Heelen brought home another run as Walpole jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead. A pair of at bats from Nolan Murray and Matt Bender allowed two more runs to score.

Despite getting more runs in the top of the second, the large lead may have been too much as Walpole began to lean on the lead to get them through the rest of the game.

“The only thing worse than being down 9-0 after two is being up 9-0 because it’s the worst spot to be in,” White said shortly after King scored on a passed ball in the top of the second inning. “You don’t know if you should run, you don’t know if you should bunt. You’re playing a really good Franklin team that’s playing well that can swing the bats and score runs. Is nine enough? It should be, but they have 18 outs to work with.”

After cutting the deficit to eight during the bottom of the forth, Walpole caught a big break when a hit that appeared to be a home run by Franklin’s Brendan Skidmore was declared a ground rule double by the umpires because of the uncertainty to whether the ball made it over the wall or not. What could have been a big two-run home run was turned into a one-run double.

A shaky sixth inning cut the Walpole lead to four but controversy ended the game and Franklin’s chance of a come back.

King led the way for Walpole with two hits, two runs, and three RBI. Heelen also had a pair of hits and runs plus two RBI. Matt Lavanchy had a hit and two runs.