Roselle Park Crushes Pastore and Pioneers, 15-4

The New Providence varsity baseball team jumped out to a 2-0 first-inning lead and had ace Doug Pastore on the hill, which on most days would put the Pioneers in the right direction on victory road.

This wasn’t one of those days.

Roselle Park shellacked Pastore for most of his short outing Monday afternoon, knocking the senior out after only 2 1/3 innings. The Panthers went on to win 15-4 in five innings.

Pastore was stellar in his previous outing last Thursday, turning heads with 10 strikeouts in five innings. Against Roselle Park, however, the only heads that were turning were those of the Pioneer outfielders chasing after hard-hit balls in the gaps.

“You have your up days and your down days,” New Providence coach Chris Brodeur said of Pastore. “This was the first time I asked him to go on a little shorter rest. It wasn’t with him, and that’s fine. I’m sure next time he goes out there he’ll be back to his old self.”

The senior gave up a run in the first but got out of further trouble with the lead still intact. It was in the second inning that the wheels started to come off for Pastore, and by the third, he was derailed completely.

Roselle Park tied the score after a double and a single, but two slick gems by shortstop Mike Felezzola put Pastore in a two-on, two-out situation.

In Thursday’s start, he pitched out of trouble several times, getting big strikeouts when he badly needed them, but he couldn’t do the same on Monday. Roselle Park struck with a bases-clearing double to right-center field to make it 4-2, and tacked on another run with a single.

“I just didn’t have it today,” Pastore said. “I just wasn’t locating, and I didn’t have anything.”

Brodeur stuck with his ace in the third, but it didn’t get any better. After a walk and a single to start the inning, Pastore gave up two long doubles to make it 9-2, and his day on the mound was done.

Mike Kennedy entered, walked the first batter he faced and gave up an RBI single, but induced a line-drive double play to Pastore at third base to end the inning and keep the Pioneers within eight runs.

New Providence (1-3) only recorded one hit against Newark Academy on Saturday, and although the team improved offensively on Monday, the Pioneers still didn't have an answer for Roselle's firepower. 

The Pioneers had a shot to get some runs back in the fourth, but they ran themselves out of the inning.

Marc Giacalone laced a single to right field and got to second when the ball trickled away from the sliding right fielder. Pastore walked to set the Pioneers up, but his sour day continued, as he strayed too far off of first base and got picked off by the catcher. Bryan Arroyo followed the folly with a flyout to left, and Scott Lessing ended the inning by grounding out to end what would prove to be the Pioneers’ last true chance to close the gap.

“I thought we were hitting the ball pretty well,” Brodeur said. “We’ve got to make sure that we can keep it going and turn over the lineup, that’s what we’re struggling with right now, but when we hit the ball, we’re making solid contact and that’s good.”

If the Pioneers want to erase this game from their collective memory, they have a chance to do so quickly, as they host Hillside on Tuesday afternoon.

However quick the Pioneers are to forget the blowout loss, Brodeur said there are some key things that his team can take away from the game to work on. 

“There’s a lot of defensive things that we can work on, plus game situations that we can talk about and grow from,” Brodeur said.

New Providence hosts Hillside today at 4 p.m.