The Watertown Post 99 American Legion baseball team's hopes of pulling off its biggest victory of the season came up 90 feet short last night at Victory Field.
Trailing, 6-5, entering the bottom of the seventh inning against second-place Weston, Post 99's Greg Palazzo was hit by a pitch with one out and then stole second and third. But with the potential tying run barreling down on home, Weston relief pitcher Will Whittemore got Watertown's Jeff Gonzalez out on a rocket to first base for the second out.
``That would have been the tie game right there,'' lamented Watertown coach Brian Dowling. ``It would have been a double so we would have had the winning run on second.''
Instead, with two outs, the recent Waltham High graduate got Watertown's Tim Barba on a strikeout to end the game.
``He had a tough at-bat out there,'' Dowling said. ``He fouled off a lot of pitches before their left-hander got him.''
Watertown fell to 2-6, while Weston improved to 7-3-1.
Dowling said Barba had an excellent game on the mound, but was hurt by poor defense.
``He made very few mistakes,'' the coach said. ``All day, he was hitting his spots and had a lot of zip on his fastball. We just had to depend on him to get too many outs per inning with all of our errors.''
Dowling noted that Weston was shaky defensively as well and that helped offset Watertown's miscues.
Weston took a 2-0 lead early before Watertown fought back for a 3-2 lead through three innings. Weston went back up, 5-3, then Post 99 tied the game on a passed ball in the fifth.
Weston retook the lead in the top of the sixth, with Watertown's last counter in the seventh coming up short.
Steve Jewers had a hit and RBI for Post 99, while Palazzo had a hit and three stolen bases.
Watertown returns to the diamond tonight against Billerica (Victory Field, 8 p.m.).
(Scott Souza is a Daily News staff writer. He can be reached at 781-398-8006 or ssouza@cnc.com.)
