By Jessica Isner, Staff Writer
August 3, 2007

COTUIT, MA — With the season winding down, the Cotuit Kettleers still could not reverse their fortunes and dropped another game, 6-1, to the Chatham A’s, the second-place team in the Eastern Division. Their record dropped to 13-25-2.

In his eighth start of the summer, Cotuit’s JB Shuck couldn’t manage to get his fourth win; he went five and a third innings, giving up four runs on five hits. Tom Milone of USC took the mound for the A’s and went an impressive six innings, giving up just one run on six hits. He improved his record 6-1.

After Shuck allowed just one batter over the minimum through the first three innings- his one slipup was a two-out single to Tim Federowicz in the second- the Kettleers were able to get him a little bit of run support. Reese Havens drilled a two-out base hit to right, and after Josh Harrison took a pitch off his arm, Ryne White brought Havens home on another single to right.

Chatham tied the game in the top of the next frame. Jermaine Curtis poked a one-out single in between first and second, then Allan Dykstra hit a high fly ball to center which landed just in front of Jonathan Pigott. Curtis came around to score and knotted the game at 1 before Zach Putnam grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

The A’s would take the lead in the fifth, when Federowicz got his second hit of the game, a leadoff grounder up the middle. Shuck was able to get the next to outs, but in the process, Federowicz moved over to third and was able to score on a passed ball.

Cotuit got a rally going in the bottom of the fifth when Pigott and Tony Delmonico led off with consecutive singles, but Havens struck out looking, Pigott got caught in a pickle between second and third, and Harrison was thrown out on a bunt attempt to end the inning.

Shuck was victimized by a couple of walks in the sixth inning, which allowed Chatham to shoot out to a 4-1 lead. His afternoon ended after he surrendered an RBI single to Zach Putnam; he was relieved by Jordan Meaker, who allowed one inherited runner to score before inducing Kevin McAvoy into a 5-3 double play.

Aside from that, Meaker was very good for the Kettleers until the top of the ninth. Until then, he retired seven straight batters, but then he allowed a couple of runs on three consecutive hits to allow the A’s to stretch their lead to 6-1. He faced seven batters in the inning.

Cotuit plays the first of its final four games tomorrow against Hyannis at 4:30 p.m.