Five months from now we will be staring at a snowbank and trying to remember what May felt like. Save this article. May felt like Gorham hanging an eight on Cheverus on a Tuesday afternoon and a Class D blowout in Aroostook County that ended on the run rule before most teams had finished their pre game.
Here is what the week of May 4 through May 10 actually delivered.
Hunter Finck of Gorham showed up. Junior, right handed, already committed to Alabama, and on Tuesday afternoon he held Cheverus to two hits in an 8 to 0 win. Cheverus came into that game without a loss this season. They left with one and a long bus ride home. Gorham played a clean nine and Finck did the work that gets your name in the lead of every preview the rest of the spring. The Slate had Cheverus as the morning favorite. The Slate was wrong. Refunds at the door.
Katahdin treated the week like batting practice. Twenty four runs on Washburn, Easton, and Central Aroostook on May 7. Eighteen runs on Ashland on May 5. Both run rule shutouts on the Ashland side. Four wins total this week, the most of any team in the state. The Aroostook County small school crew is starting to look like a team that does not just win, they make you check the run rule rules to see what counts. Class D South should keep an eye on the schedule. Class D North already knows.
Hampden Academy and Belfast played a game where every pitch felt like the last out of the season. Hampden 4, Belfast 3. May 7. Three runs apart from someone scoring four. Belfast had been on a tidy little run before this one, and Hampden Academy is the kind of team that wins those by a single run. The PVC has produced a lot of close games this spring. This was the closest of them.
Other things that happened. Lake Region beat Cape Elizabeth 2 to 1, which is unusual to see in May baseball when the bats are usually starting to wake up. Carrabec edged Traip 5 to 4. Dexter and Penobscot Christian combined to hand Orono a 1 to 0 loss, and yes, that scoreline is correct. Pitching is back. Pitching never left, but it is back.
Gorham, Bangor, Scarborough, South Portland, and Thornton Academy all went three and zero this week. Bangor is doing Bangor things. Scarborough is doing Scarborough things. The South Portland and Thornton Academy storyline this season is two SMAA programs separated by a coin flip on every Slate matchup we run. Both of them just stayed perfect for seven straight days. Watch the Friday night when those two finally see each other on the schedule.
If you are an All Access member, GameIQ is cooking right now. Predictions for every baseball game on the schedule, with class context and a win probability that updates every night. The Slate, Big Board, Receipts, Power Index, Mover Board, and the rest of the dashboards all run on the same nightly refresh, so by the time the bus pulls in tomorrow afternoon the new numbers are already on the page.
One more week of pure regular season after this one, then we start showing the playoff picture and you start finding reasons to be at every game.