Damian Maffetone went 3-for-3 for the Zoned RedHawks 15U in Fall League play on Tuesday.
By Rich Bevensee
Baseball players are often heard to say they’re using the fall season to sharpen their skills, keep their good habits intact and delay the inevitable in-game rust which comes with winter.
Damian Maffetone and Liam St. John are employing a different perspective this fall. Maffetone is trying to escape a stubborn offensive drought, and St. John is coming off a lost summer season due to health setbacks.
Both players seem to have found their way back to a familiar rhythm, which couldn’t be better news for the Zoned RedHawks 15U Select ballclub.
On Tuesday evening, Maffetone went 3-for-3 with a double and two RBI and St. John pitched three nearly flawless innings to lift the RedHawks to a 10-0 win over Morris County Cubs 15U Navy in the Diamond Nation High School Fall League in Flemington.
The six-inning, mercy rule victory – the RedHawks’ second win over the Cubs this fall – snapped a two-game slide for Zoned (2-3). The Cubs slipped to 0-5.
St. John, a freshman righty from Scotch Plains-Fanwood High, lost three weeks from his summer season due to an appendectomy on June 2. While in surgery, doctors found a hernia, so St. John landed back on the table for an August procedure, and missed four more weeks of baseball.
“Yeah, that was pretty frustrating, but when I had the second surgery the season was almost over, so I didn’t miss too much after that,” St. John said.
St. John seems to have accelerated his comeback because his velocity and location on Tuesday appeared to be on point. While using a curveball and changeup to complement a generous amount of fastballs, he faced one batter over the minimum in his three innings of work, a single to Josh Arturi to lead off the third. St. John did not surrender a walk and he struck out two.
“I actually felt more comfortable than I normally do,” St. John said. “I just felt really good today. It’s a lot of fun being back. If I didn’t have the surgeries I’d definitely be doing better than I am right now, but I didn’t really think I’d get to this point this fast.”
Maffetone, a freshman at St. Joseph’s of Metuchen, said he endured a recent stretch of about 10 games in which base hits suddenly became rare. To his credit, he went back to the batting cage to deconstruct his swing.
“When you’re not hitting it seems like a really long time,” Maffetone said. “I have high expectations for myself, so if I don’t get one hit in a game I’m pretty disappointed. Numbers like batting average are a big thing for me.
“For me it was about going back to mechanics and breaking everything down. I’m putting my weight on my backside a little more, and I’m using a flatter bat path so I have a bigger window to hit.”
The kid may have a future as a batting coach. On Tuesday he covered the plate well and hit to all fields. In the top of the first inning, Maffetone slapped an outside pitch into right for an opposite-field, two-run single to fuel a four-run rally. In the third, Maffetone singled sharply to center, and in the fifth he blasted a double into the right-center field gap.
Cole Shapiro hustles back to first for the Morris County Cubs 15U Navy.
Counting a base hit he got last week in his final at bat against Go The Distance 16U, Maffetone has a streak of four straight plate appearances with a hit.
“Definitely was a good day,” Maffetone said. “I was just looking for my pitch. If it was outside I tried taking it outside. If it was inside I was trying to pull it.”
The Cubs were their own worst enemies in bowing to the RedHawks, committing five errors on routine plays and allowing six unearned runs.
In the first, Maffetone gave the RedHawks a 2-0 lead and D’Angelo Del Forno followed three batters later with another two-run single to boost the lead to 4-0.
In the third, Evan Zangaro drove in Andrew Burns with a sacrifice fly, and on the same play, a Cubs throw was errant in trying to get Maffetone advancing to third, allowing him to score for a 6-0 Zoned lead.
Zoned made it 7-0 when Grayson Petronzi scored on an error on a Max Syryca ground ball in the fourth.
The RedHawks tacked on three more runs in the sixth. Syryca knocked in Andrew Kolenski with a sacrifice fly and Joseph DeLucia belted a two-run double to left-center.
Joseph Lombardo pitched a scoreless inning in relief for Zoned, and Burns handled the final two frames, striking out five and walking three.