Easton Legion Post 7 Stumbles in Loss to Westport

The 2-10 Easton Legion Post 7 baseball team just can't catch a break.

And, when things are going bad, they seem to be going very bad.

Such was the case Thursday evening at when the hometown team fell to visiting Westport Post 145, 7-1.

"It’s kind of the way it’s been going," Easton Coach Frank Auditore said.

Easton's offense hit an unforgiving barrier in the form of Westport pitcher Kyle Mello, who threw a complete game one-hitter, while allowing no earned runs, striking out three and walking three.

It was only his third start in what has been an injury-plagued season.

"He messed up some of the tendons on the bottom of his foot and heel and he’s been struggling," Westport Coach Jay Pacheco said. "He took a few games off and DH’d and had been limited to first base, but he came back and threw a very nice game in a big spot for us, so he did a great job."

Westport's bats were in full force as well. Seven of Westport's nine starters ended the game with a hit.

The action started in the first inning when a fielder's choice off the bat of Nick Proulx drove in leadoff hitter Devin Sanders, who doubled to start the game. Post 222 added two more runs in the second to take a commanding lead early.

"We were dead from the first pitch on," Auditore said. "It’s tough to recover when you get [down] 2,3,4 runs early and you aren’t hitting. It seems like it spills over to the field and we start making errors too. We need to keep working hard, that’s all we can do."

Westport added four more runs (one in the fourth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh) but two was all it needed to win.

Easton's lone run came in the fourth inning when Sam Graff reached on an error and scored on a pass ball.

Greg Cummings started the game for Easton and was relieved by Eddie Deveau in the fifth inning.

Post 7 hopes to snap an 8-game skid Friday night in Taunton at 5:45. Easton was short-handed Thursday without key players in the middle of the lineup like Andrew Mancini, Matt Harding and Ryan O'Shea.

"Tomorrow night we play at Taunton," Auditore said. "It should be a good game. [David] MacKinnon's going to pitch and we should have everybody back and we’ll see what happens."