Another day, another series sweep for the Manchester Essex Mariners.
Holding on to the top spot in the Intertown Twilight League (ITL) baseball standings since the season began, the Mariners took two of three in dominant fashion against rival Rockport last week. The Beverly Giants were next on deck, and Manchester dominated them, too, picking up two more wins in succession to increase their cushion at the top of the league.
In the most recent victory on Tuesday night, the Mariners got a complete game shutout from Zach Abbott, who fanned nine batters in his team’s 5-0 win.
“Zach cruised all night; he was lights out,” said Manchester manager Cory Burnham. “He was incredibly efficient and anytime they had runners on we were able to double them off. I think only one player reached second base for them and it was a double to lead off the third inning. Abbott was able to strike out two and get a ground out (to end the inning).”
Abbott has been one of the Mariners’ top arms all summer, so it wasn’t exactly surprising to see him cruise once again.
But in this particularly outing, he certainly got plenty of help from his defense, too. Short stop Theo Massella was particularly effective, turning three double plays on the day.
“We played very sound defense all game,” added Burnham.
Offensively, Caulin Rogers led the charge with a double, but Burnham admitted it was more opportunistic plays on that side of the ball that allowed them to cross the plate five times. In the second and third innings the Beverly pitcher walked the first batter and Manchester was able to chip away and grab two runs in the second and three in the third for the game’s only runs.
In the previous win on Sunday, the Mariners snared a convincing 13-2 win over Beverly behind strong pitching performances from both Nick Brown (4 innings) and Cory McCollum (3 shutout innings), the latter of whom was playing on his birthday.
Offensively, Manchester’s James Dolan mashed a home run while Caulin Rogers had a trio of hits to help lead the hitting onslaught. Beverly’s Luke McDonald led his team with a home run in the first inning.
Now 12-3 on the year, Manchester is off until next Tuesday (July 21) when they open a two-game slate against second place Rowley (9-4).
Sports Editor Nick Giannino may be contacted at 978-675-2712 or ngiannino@northofboston.com.