The Kraken, the Hamptons Adult Hardball team seeking a three-peat in that over-30 baseball league’s playoffs, was soundly defeated 10-5 in game two of the final series by the Sag Harbor Royals at Bridgehampton High School’s field Sunday.
The Royals’ win was a rare one. The league leaders have rarely been beaten, in fact.
It looked as if it were going to be an utter walkover in the beginning, the Royals, the home team that day, having scored one run in the first, three in the second, three in the third, and one in the fourth before the Kraken, a team on which Andrew Rodriguez, Scott Abran, Dylan Field, Steve Turza, and Charlie Collins play, got on the scoreboard in the fifth to make it 8-1 Royals.
The Kraken’s chief nemesis that day was the Royals’ starting pitcher, Keeler Otero, who went all seven innings. Besides five runs, he gave up eight hits, walked four, and struck out eight. He also ended the game with a double play, spearing a hard liner by Bren Rack, the Kraken’s fifth hitter, and doubling up Tom McGrath off third.
Aiding the Royals’ cause was the fact that they were issued eight walks by Kraken pitching — five in the sixth alone by Tim Pilinko, who had come on in relief of the starter, Doc Petrucelli, the inning before.
The decisive game in the playoff final may be played at Bridgehampton Thursday, with a 5 p.m. start, or on Sunday at 9 a.m.
The Royals, who were missing their other starting pitcher, Ryan Lovett, presumably were content not to play a doubleheader on Sunday, as the Kraken reportedly wanted to do if they were to lose game two.
Otero also did well at the plate. A two-run single of his extended the Royals’ lead to 7-0 in the bottom of the third. Ben Gregor, the designated hitter, hit one over the center fielder’s head for one more Royal run in the fourth.
Finally, the Kraken got on the board with a run-scoring single by Collins in the top of the fifth that scored Pilinko, who had been hit by a pitch, advanced to second on a wild pitch, and reached third on a subsequent bunt by Petrucelli.
The big inning for the Kraken was the sixth, one in which they scored four runs to make a game of it. Rodriguez singled to lead off and advanced to second on an overthrow. Mitch Borcherding, whose son, Brett, pitched in collegiate wood bat leagues here and in Vermont this summer, followed with a single, and Rack drove in A-Rod with a base hit. Yet another run came in as the result of a botched rundown between first and second. A single by Field, who hits seventh in the Kraken lineup, made it 8-4, and a long two-out sac fly to left field by Petrucelli made it 8-5.
The Kraken, it seemed, were within reach. But only for a moment. The Royals, treated to those five walks by Pilinko in their sixth, tacked two more runs on to their lead, without a hit. Abran got the last two outs, fanning the Royals’ second hitter, Brian Dunkirk, with the bases loaded and, after running in to field Jason DeLand’s bunt, forcing a runner at home.
McGrath started off the Kraken’s last at-bat with a walk, Abran was called out on strikes, but A-Rod, reaching for a high pitch, doubled deep to right-center, putting runners at second and third with one out for Nick Dombkowski, who walked, loading the bases for Rack, whose hard line drive Otero speared before doubling up McGrath at third for the game-ending out.