MIDDLETOWN — The Plainville Blue Devils baseball team won their season opener against Windham Tech, but are currently riding a three-game losing streak.
After falling to the Middletown Blue Dragons on Tuesday at Palmer Field, Middletown, Plainville now sits at 1-3 with a 10-4 loss to Middletown. In the loss, Plainville went down 5-0 after the first inning but erupted for four runs in the third inning making it a two-run game. Middletown would score four unanswered runs to seal their victory.
In the loss, Plainville head coach Lou Mandeville thought his team gave Middletown too many runs with the errors and miscommunication on defense.
“You’re not going to get five runs at once, so you try to get one run at a time, one hit at a time,” said Mandeville. “We did that in the third, it took us a few innings. We got some life, we showed some guts coming back and making a game of it in the middle but we’re not making teams earn their runs, we gave a little too many.”
After allowing one hit in the first inning, the Blue Dragons quickly got on offense. They had a lot of offensive success, scoring five runs in the first inning. A big moment came when senior Travis Newman knocked a two-run home run out of left field to put Middletown up 4-0. Their fifth run of the inning came when sophomore Andrew Tuttle hit an RBI single that saw sophomore Brett Herzog score.
Like the first inning, Plainville got one hit in the second inning but Middletown got three quick outs. The Blue Dragons added a run, going up 6-0 as senior A.J. Quinn scored on an RBI double from senior Corey Turcotte.
The Blue Devils came alive in the third inning scoring four runs cutting Middletown’s lead to two. After senior Gavin Cooke hit a single to left field and stole second base, junior Charlie Hills brought him home with an RBI double. Hills then scored as junior Jayden Castro got on base via an error committed in the outfield. The Blue Devils then scored two more runs from a two-run RBI double from junior Matt Hitchcock. Senior Tate Stevens and Castro scored the two runs as Plainville got within two runs.
Mandeville liked seeing the play happen where two of his players scored on a big hit from Hitchcock. He said that he got joy out of seeing his guys run the bases and scoring multiple runs in one play.
“It was exciting to see because we haven’t had too many of those in our early season,” said Mandeville. “That’s the part of baseball that’s fun. You hit the ball, guys are running around the bases, fans are cheering, that’s good stuff. For the amount of time the kids put in and for the work they do, you’re happy when you see stuff like that.”
Facing two outs in the bottom of the third, Middletown got two batters on base via errors committed by Plainville. Junior Frankie Randazzesse was walked as he got hit by a pitch, making the bases loaded. A wild pitch allowed Herzog to score his second run of the game before Plainville got their third out. Middletown went up 7-4.
After a scoreless fourth inning, Middletown added three more runs in the final two innings to go up 10-4. Tuttle scored in the bottom of the fifth on a wild pitch. In the sixth inning, Middletown scored two more runs off of another wild pitch. Turcotte and senior Luke Weisenberg scored for Middletown.
Plainville will be back on the mound this Saturday. They’ll take on the Platt Panthers (1-1) in Meriden at 11:00 a.m. and will look to end their three-game skid. Middletown will face Berlin on Friday afternoon at Sage Park.
Mandeville said that the team will work on their pitching and sharpening up their defense in preparation for the Panthers.
“We’ll stick with our plan,” Mandeville said. “We’ll work on our pitching and defense and we may not be where we want to be, but we have to stick to the plan. Up at the plate we have to get better pitches to hit and use the whole field.
