Cole Escobar's complete game, Devin Proulx's hitting key latest win, 3-2 over Bourne

Greg Sullivan Herald News Staff Reporter

 

SWANSEA — One quarter of the way through the regular season and Case High baseball is looking more and more like it's for real.

With senior co-captain Devin Proulx leading the offense and junior Cole Escobar spinning a complete game with no earned runs allowed, the Cardinals (5-0) remained perfect for April by defeating Bourne 3-2 in their South Coast Conference game on chilly Wednesday at Judge Aguiar Field.

Case was 3-17 a year ago and 7-13 the previous season.

"We're just playing good baseball," first-year head coach Jordan Amorin said after his Cards upped their SCC record to 4-0. "We're not walking anybody. We're not making a lot of errors. Timely hits. Just good baseball. That's why we're winning."

Proulx is one of the Cardinal  veterans, meaning he's experienced the downs of 2017 and 2016. Now, as leadoff batter and center fielder, he's very much in the middle of the turnaround.

"We're just a team, just trying to play baseball," Proulx said after going 3-for-4 with two runs batted in, one run scored and the game-winning RBI single. "We're not worried about losing. We just want to get as many wins as we possibly can and change the program around."

"We're just trying to change the culture," senior co-captain and cleanup batter Jeremy Thiboutot said after going 2-for-3 with a double against Bourne (2-2). "We went from 3 and 17 last year. Now we beat the win total from last year. New coach. Everything's new around here. It's looking good."

Escobar allowed five hits, all over the first three innings when Bourne stranded six baserunners. He didn't surrender a hit in the top of the fourth when Bourne tied the game on a walk and, a two-out outfield error immediately followed by two Case rapid-fire errors which allowed two runs to score on a first-and-third double steal.

Escobar (3 walks, 1 strikeout) was dominant over the last three innings, allowing one walk and retiring the last eight batters.

"You can't say enough about Cole," Amorin said. "It was cold out today. He gutted it out. He threw a lot of strikes, didn't walk many guys. He didn't have a lot of strikeouts, but we rely on our defense to make plays and he did that today."

Proulx reached base in all four of his at-bats. In the first inning, he reached second base on an error, got to third without a play on Dan Silva's ground out to shortstop, and scored on Ross Audet's sacrifice fly to shallow right-center. In the third, Case made it 2-0 on a Dylan Thiboutot one-out single, a hit batsman, a fielder's choice force out at third, and a Proulx off-field single to right.

"A lot of fun," Proulx said. "We're on a high right now. Just playing baseball. No worries."

"I kind of thought this year was going to be a rebuilding season," Jeremy Thiboutot said. "I thought we were going to be OK, but it's turning out we're going to be pretty good this year."

Email Greg Sullivan at gsullivan@heraldnews.com. Follow him @GregSullivanHN.