Injuries Derail Promising Start to Season for Stoughton Legion Baseball

The following was submitted to Stoughton Patch:

The Stoughton Legion Post 89 baseball team lost in walk off fashion to Canton last Friday night, 8-7, to conclude the 2013 summer campaign, in what Manager Jim Derochea characterized as, "a microcosm of our disappointing season." 

Stoughton jumped out to a 6-1 lead through their half of the 5th inning, in large part to Kaleb Ballou's long two-run home run in the third inning and his RBI single in the 5th. 

With temps in the upper 90's, Stoughton starting pitcher Sam Werman cruised through 4 innings before tiring a bit in the 5th as Canton struck for 3 runs. 

After Canton cut the lead to 6-4 with 2 men in scoring position, Werman gave way to Pat Raeke, who came in to pitch on 2 days rest and wriggled out of the jam to keep preserve the 2-run lead.    

Stoughton Post 89 extended the lead in the top of the 6th inning to 7-4 when Kaleb Ballou smacked his third hit of the day to plate Mike Gallagher, who had singled earlier in the inning and stole second and third base.  The RBI was Ballou's fourth of the game. 

But Canton struck right back with 2 runs of their own to slice the lead to one run, 7-6 to set the stage for an exciting 7th inning finish.  

After Stoughton failed to score in the top of the 7th, Canton rallied to score the tying run in the bottom of the inning. Canton completed the comeback as a Pat Raeke knuckleball floated into the path of the batter's elbow to force in the final run, handing Canton an 8-7 walk off win.  

"We really wanted to finish the season with a strong win against our biggest rival, (Canton) who are headed to the playoffs," said a disappointed Derochea.  "We came out of the gate strong and showed a lot of character, but just didn't have the horses to finish the job today." 

Derochea further explained, "Pat (Raeke) wanted the ball late in the game despite only having a couple days of rest, so hats off to him and Sam who pitched their heart out.  That's a microcosm of our season, we got off to a good start, but due to injuries and circumstances outside of our (team) control, we lost more than half of our pitching staff and the results showed in the second half." 

After a promising 5-4-1 start, the team went 1-12 over the final 13 games to end the year 6-16-1. 

"It is disappointing," said Coach Kevin McCormick in reference to the season. 

"We recruited a very talented team and expected to be in the top 2 or 3 teams in our division.  We originally had 12 pitchers on board out of 18 projected roster spots but we lost 3 of them at the last minute (to Sr. Babe Ruth) and a 4th opted out (College bound), all prior to our first game.  That really set us back, then in the second week of our season, we lost 4 pitchers with arm injuries as a result of their respective AAU tournaments.  Losing 8 quality pitchers like that would decimate any team," lamented McCormick.

Despite the injury issues, Post 89 maintained enough healthy bodies to finish the season fielding exactly 9 players on 7 occasions down the stretch and earned their coach's respect by the way they battled each game.  

Several Post 89'ers had outstanding seasons, including team captain, Pat Jackman who will be entering UMass Amherst in the fall. Jackman led the team in hitting with a .429 average in 16 games played, while swiping 16 bases and scoring 15 runs while playing solid shortstop for Stoughton. 

Rising Stoughton High Senior, Kaleb Ballou also put up huge numbers. Ballou was the only Post 89'er to play all 23 games and finished at .391 for the season while leading the team with 19 RBI. 

Zach Gibb batted .400 in 7 games in his injury shortened season as well.

On the mound, ace Mike Gallagher nursed a sore arm during the entire season, but managed to pitch 15 innings, going 2-0 with a save while sporting a microscopic 0.46 ERA. Gallagher also struck out 19 batters in those 15 innings of work.

Given all the injuries, two players not slated to pitch at all, were forced into action. 

Rising sophomore Kyle Silverman chipped in to toss 10 innings, including a complete game against Cohasset and finished with a respectable 3.50 ERA. Kaleb Ballou was the team's biggest surprise, tossing 15 innings, striking out 16 while netting a solid 2.68 ERA.

"We definitely had some surprising sources step up to pitch and they really acquitted themselves well," praised Derochea. 

"This season may have been disappointing in respect to the expectations the players themselves had coming in, but I think the adversity of having to deal with so many pitchers going down, really helped build character and unexpected leaders emerged."    

Stoughton will return 13 of 17 players on the 2013 roster next season, so they know the window for this team has not closed.

Looking ahead, Coach Derochea added, "This Post 89 baseball team will be a force to be reckoned with in 2014 because the boys are hungry, experienced and feel that they have something to prove!"