LYNN — When you’re a college baseball player, it’s important to stay sharp over the summer. Salem State first baseman Brett Molea, a Lynn native, spent the past three months fine-tuning his craft with the Manchester Marlins of the North Shore Baseball League.
“Summer baseball polishes off some things you didn’t do well during the college season,” Molea, a 2016 English graduate, said. “You know what you want to do going into summer baseball. This year my goal was to cut down my strikeouts. I did well at that. This was the least amount of strikeouts that I’ve had in my years playing summer baseball. The college season just kind of rolls over. You try to tweak some of the things you worked on during your college season.”
Molea’s efforts paid dividends. In 22 games, the former Bulldog posted an impressive .308 batting average (16-for-53) and drove in 18 RBI (sixth-best in NSBL).
He attributed his success at the plate to a minor tweak.
“I’ve watched a lot of pro videos and they talk about hitting the ball hard,” Molea said. “I actually added a leg kick to my swing this summer and that’s helped me get the RBI’s up and keep the strikeouts down.”
Molea boosted Manchester’s offense en route to one of the team’s better seasons in recent history. Manchester went 12-11 during the regular season, good for the No. 6 seed in the NSBL playoffs. The Marlins fell short to the No. 3 Beverly Recs in the best-of-three quarterfinal.
“The Marlins for the past few years haven’t been one of the younger teams in the league,” Molea said. “A lot of the older guys moved on and the team brought in a lot of young talent. We’ve been at the bottom of the standings for the past few seasons. Our goal was to win our first playoff game ever and we did that. Our manager, Mike McLaughlin, does a terrific job. We work really well together.”
This past season was Molea’s fifth in the NSBL, his third with Manchester.
“The great thing about the NSBL is all the games are local,” Molea said. “That makes it easy in the summer when you’re working. You have to make money somehow. The league itself is unbelievable. You’re going to see some (former) pros. We played the Phillies and they’ve had Tyler Gauthier, who played for the Rays. It’s a casual league but the talent itself is second to none, I think, in leagues around here.”
Molea hopes the adjustments he made to his swing work in his favor during his upcoming junior season with the Vikings. Salem State went 18-20 last season and was bounced by Bridgewater State in the opening round of the MASCAC Tournament.
“You want to take stuff you tweaked and carry it into the (college) season,” Molea said. “With hitting the ball hard, the extra base hit numbers come up too. I know the weather is colder during the college season but seeing the ball leave the yard a few times would be nice. Hopefully I can make that happen.
“As a team, we’ve been really good recently. When it comes to the MASCAC Tournament, we’ve never been able to get over the hump of finishing third or fourth in the league. I think we have the talent to get over that hump next season and hopefully win a MASCAC title.”
Off the diamond Molea’s making the most of an internship with Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company based in Boston.
“This is a great company to get my feet wet with,” Molea, a business management/finance major, said. “If they want me back, that’d be even better. I’ve always loved the business world. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, since I was little. Just getting my foot in the door with this company has been great.”
