LEWISTON – Alex Smith had a brief moment of confusion on the mound as he was trying to protect a one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning of Sunday’s Zone III semifinal between Mechanic Falls and Gayton.
“(Catcher Jeremy Callahan) gave me the change-up sign, and I was like What was that again?'” Smith said.
But then Smith remembered the conversation he and his catcher had just had. It seemed that the Gayton baserunner at second, representing the tying run, was stealing signs, so Callahan came out to the mound to change them.
With the count 3-2 to Gayton catcher John Emerson and runners on first and second with two out, Callahan put down three fingers, which under the old sign language between the battery meant change-up, but under the revised code meant curve. Smith silently questioned it at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the unconventional idea of throwing a breaking ball with a full count.
“I figured I’d give it a try,” Smith said. “I figured the batter wouldn’t be ready for it.”
Emerson wasn’t, so he popped the ball up to Callahan, who hauled it in for the final out that moved Mechanic Falls within one win of becoming the Cinderella story of the state Legion tournament.
Smith pitched 2 1/3 innings of shutout relief and gave Brent Cary enough time to drive in the winning run in the ninth to lift No. 7 Mechanic Falls to a 7-6 win over No. 6 Gayton, 7-6.
They may have a record resembling the average Tampa Bay Devil Rays starting pitcher, but Mechanic Falls (7-15) is just a win over No. 4 Bessey Motors today from winning Zone III and going to the state tournament next weekend.
“I was hoping one of our big bats would come up with a big hit today. We’ve struggled some to get that this season,” Mechanic Falls coach Dave Jordan said. “If we got a couple of key hits in situations like we had today, we could have had a record much closer to .500 this year.”
Mechanic Falls chipped away at a mid-game 4-1 deficit, getting an RBI single from Cary (three hits) in the sixth to cut it in half, then run-scoring singles from Jake Pelletier and Callahan in the seventh to tie it. Smith’s two-out triple later in the inning gave Mechanic Falls their first lead, 6-4.
“We let them hang around. The key for us (Saturday) was we got ahead of Smith-Tobey and we scored some runs quick (in a 14-2 win),” said Gayton coach Don King. “We got enough (early) to make them feel like they weren’t coming back. We certainly had opportunities to do that again today.”
Gayton (8-15) didn’t miss out on tying the game up again in the bottom of the seventh on a bases-loaded walk to Ryan Turgeon (two hits) and a wild pitch. They threatened to take the lead, but Smith came on with the bases juiced and two outs to get Zach Timmermeyer to ground out to third and end the inning.
Mechanic Falls wasted a great chance to take the lead again in the eighth by getting one runner thrown out at third with nobody out, then stranding another who made it to third with one out.
But after Smith retired the side 1-2-3 in the eighth, Joe Douglas laced a one-out triple in the ninth, and Mechanic Falls was back in business. Douglas stayed at third on Callahan’s safety squeeze attempt, but Callahan reached, so Gayton elected to intentionally walk Smith to load the bases. Cary followed with a soft liner to the opposite field to plate Douglas with what proved to be the winning run.
“I’ve been hitting the ball hard the last three games and it’s been going right at people,” Cary said. “The only RBIs I’ve had have been on bloop hits. I’ve been getting a high pitch and I’ve just been kind of going with it and it was getting the job done.”
Smith got two quick outs in the ninth before Turgeon started trouble with an infield hit. A walk to Luke Potter put the potential winning run on base before Smith and Callahan executed their sign-switching plan.
“I figured before the game that I’d be throwing at least a few (innings) tonight,” Smith said. “I was more than glad to get in there. My arm was a little tight, but any time I get a chance to take the mound in a game like this, I just love it.”
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