PEABODY — The mantra for the Peabody baseball team all season has been, “throw strikes, play good defense and take advantage when you can on offense.”
On Wednesday morning at Donohue Field, the Tanners did all that and more in an 11-1 victory in six innings over Winthrop in a Northeastern Conference bout.
“What you’re seeing is a group of guys that has 100 percent bought in,” said Peabody coach Mark Bettencourt. “Throwing strikes and playing defense is what we do consistently, and then you get days like this where everyone is hitting and we push across a bunch of runs. But it all starts with our pitching and our defense.”
That pitching was led by southpaw Cam Connolly, who went five innings — and was perfect through the first three — and allowed one run on one hit with five strikeouts. Mike Petro came in to pitch the final inning for the Tanners, getting through it in just five pitches.
“Cam did a really good job of just keeping their hitters off balance,” said Bettencourt. “You need to be able to throw three pitches for strikes — a fastball, a breaking ball and a changeup or offspeed pitch of some kind. Cam and Mike have both worked really hard this offseason on developing those pitches, and we saw the results out here (Wednesday).”
Petro also went 2-for-4 with two RBI to help pace the offense, while Giovanni Guglielmo (2-for-3), Joe Raymond (1-for-2, two walks) and Josh Sigmon (1-for-1, three walks) also had two RBI each. Danny Espinosa went 1-for-1 with one RBI, while Mike Krouse (1-for-3, double) and Branden Waite (1-for-3, two runs scored) also had hits.
Winthrop couldn’t get much going on either side of the field Wednesday, getting its lone hit from Joe Hayes and its lone RBI on a sacrifice fly from Joe Ferullo.
The first inning and a half went by without incident, but the Tanners started to get cooking in the bottom of the second. A walk, a single and a sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third with one out for Josh Sigmon, who beat out an infield single to drive in the first run of the game. Petro stepped up next and notched a more conventional RBI single to left field, then two batters later Raymond blooped a short two-run single into right-center to push the lead to 4-0. After Guglielmo got in on the action with an RBI single of his own, the Tanners led 5-0 after two innings.
After cruising through the first three innings, Connolly ran into a bit of trouble in the fourth before working out of it. A pair of errors and a single loaded up the bases for the Vikings, who finally cashed in when Ferullo hit a deep fly ball to bring home a run and make it 5-1.
Peabody answered right back in the bottom of the fourth, getting an RBI single from Guglielmo and an RBI walk from Sigmon before an infield error brought home a third run and made it an 8-1 game.
Things stood there until the bottom of the sixth, when Peabody was able to wrap up the game after grabbing a run on a passed ball and then getting RBI singles from Espinosa and Petro to hit the 10-run threshold.
Winthrop (4-3) hosts Danvers Friday morning (10).
Peabody (5-1) hosts Gloucester Friday morning (10).
“Friday is going to be a real test for us,” said Bettencourt. “Joe (Raymond) is coming off of a start that wasn’t his best the last time around, so we’re hoping he can bounce back and come out with a good performance to lead us. And hopefully we can continue some of this hot offense as well.”
