Raiders’ bats starting to wake up

The record may not reflect it, but things are looking up.

After stumbling to an 0-2 start, the Watertown High baseball team split its next two games, riding some big bats to a 10-8 victory in Winchester on Monday, April 13, before falling to visiting Wakefield in nine innings, 15-8, on Wednesday, April 15, in the wildest game of the Raiders’ young season.

Brendan Berkeley, Austin Farry, Kyle Foley, and Jake Walsh all homered in the win over Winchester, as the Raiders held off a Sachem rally to hang on for their first win of the season.

Junior Greg Yeghishyan picked up the win in his first outing of the season, and the Raiders finally got the run support they were missing in their opening two games.

Foley, in his second start of the year, Foley was stellar against Wakefield, despite finishing with a no-decision. He gave up four runs in seven innings, with seven strikeouts.

Throwing an astronomical 124 pitches, Foley only got better as the game went on. The highlight of his outing came in the sixth inning, when the junior lefthander pitched his way out of a bases-loaded, no-out jam, setting down two batters on strikes before getting a third to fly out.

After going into extra innings, the Raiders looked to have the momentum after crawling back from a 6-4 deficit to tie things up in the bottom of the eighth. However, the Warriors broke the game wide open in the top of the ninth, putting nine runs on the board.

The Raiders put up two runs in the bottom of the ninth, and tempers flared between the sides as the game wound down. After Yeghishyan was called out on a disputed play at second base, the Raider junior had words with the Warriors shortstop and both players were ejected for their troubles.

Watertown got on the board first, courtesy of a two-run double from Santino Fierimonte in the second inning. Andrew Massarotti’s sacrifice fly drove in Farry in the third, and Berkeley’s RBI single in the fourth left things tied at 4. The Raiders couldn’t find the winner in the bottom of the seventh as extra innings loomed.

After the Warriors put two runs on the board in the top of the eighth, Berkeley’s long fly ball was dropped in left field, and Jared Grillo scored all the way from first base to cut the deficit to 6-5. Farry’s infield single brought Berkeley in from third base and another inning of baseball.

It was in the top of the ninth that everything went wrong for the locals.

Having to put four pitchers on the mound, the inning never seemed to end for the Raiders, and the Raiders dropped to 1-3 with a 15-8 loss.

The offensive outburst of late is a good sign for a Raider team that only managed five runs in its first two games. The bats have certainly come alive recently, with 18 runs scored in the last two games.

The Raiders look to right the ship this weekend as they play back-to-back games at Burlington on Friday at 4 p.m., and at Victory Field on Saturday at noon against Notre Dame of Lawrence.

–April 16, 2015–