Cape’s Harwich Goes 5-0 on Week, Retains Top Spot In Weekly Ranking

The Harwich Mariners won the Cape Cod League championship in 2011, mainly on the strength of a deep, powerful pitching staff. In all, 12 Mariners pitchers were selected in this year’s draft, including two first-rounders and two supplemental first-rounders.

If Harwich is to repeat as Cape League champs, it may be largely on the strength of a powerful offensive team. Thus far, the Mariners are hitting .287 as a team, averaging almost six runs a game and leading the Cape with 18 homers.

The impressive offensive production has enabled Harwich to bolt out to an 8-2 record this season, including six wins in a row, and the Mariners have retained their spot atop Perfect Game’s weekly ranking of the nation’s top 30 summer league clubs.

Harwich continues to get an inspired performance from rising Samford junior outfielder Philip Ervin, who is hitting .410, leads the Cape Cod League in homers (5) and shares the league lead in RBIs (13). Erwin has been joined in the Mariners outfield by two more rising juniors with impressive power credentials in Stanford’s Austin Wilson and Notre Dame’s Eric Jagielo. Wilson, a potential early first-rounder in the 2013 draft, joined the team late because of his class commitments at Stanford, but got off to a fast start by hitting .500-2-7 in his first four games.

Jagielo was merely hitting .400-3-8 through his first 10 contests, and won one game for Harwich with a two-run, 10th-inning walk-off homer in a 4-2 win over Hyannis.

While Harwich retained its No. 1 summer-league ranking with five straight wins, it barely held off a second Cape League team, Orleans, which is 9-1 on the summer. The Firebirds actually lead Harwich by a game in the Cape’s Eastern Division, and jumped from No. 22 to No. 2 in the latest ranking.

The Firebirds are doing it mainly with superior pitching as they lead the Cape League with a 2.31 ERA, and have gotten a dominant performance to date from rising Kentucky junior righthander Trevor Gott, who leads the league with four saves. In six innings, he has allowed just one hit and one walk while striking out eight. But the Firebirds may have suffered a crucial loss with the departure of potentially the team’s best starter in Arizona State righthander Trevor Williams (0-0, 2.25 in two starts), a potential first-rounder in 2013 who left to join USA Baseball’s college national team.

A total of five teams from the Cape Cod League, easily the nation’s most-prestigious summer-college league, occupy spots in Perfect Game’s Top 30 Ranking, and conceivably more teams from that league could be ranked, except that a team must have at least a .500 record overall to receive consideration.

Teams are ranked on the following criteria: won-loss record, league dominance, depth and quality of professional-level talent and the overall strength of the league.