Futures League News & Notes: Vermont Lake Monsters Win League Title

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It is good to be king. Just ask the Vermont Lake Monsters, who in their first year in the Futures League came away with the trophy. They were the best team in the regular season and although it took three games to finish off Pittsfield in the finals, the Lake Monsters prove they could “walk that aisle” and get the job done. Let’s recap how the Futures League championship series between these two teams went.

With Vermont having the home-field advantage for the series, it was important for Pittsfield to get off to a good start on the road. The Suns did just that scoring runs in six of the nine innings played, and using the long ball (they hit three of them) to jump-start their offense. Pittsfield went on the road and took game one rather convincingly winning by a 10-2 score. First Basemen Jack Thorbahn had a big night for Pittsfield as he went 1-for-4 with four runs batted in. His lone hit was a three-run home run in the seventh that helped the visitors claim game one. The Suns also received great pitching as they held the Lake Monsters to only four hits on the night. Gage Feeney went the first five for the Suns allowing two of those hits and zero runs. He threw 86 pitches of which 46 were for strikes. He faced 22 batters in his outing to pick up the win. The bullpen took care of the rest but they did give up the two runs on two more hits. The game was never really in doubt. Vermont used six pitchers in game one with Francis Ferguson getting the start. Wildness was a problem for Ferguson as he would walk five in an inning and a third. However, the loss was suffered by Leif Bigelow who gave up four runs on five hits in two innings of work.

Pittsfield now had the chance to go home and win the series in front of the home fans. However, Vermont had other ideas. The Lake Monsters 12-5 win was secured in the middle innings as Vermont would post three-run innings in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings. They banged out 14 hits with eight of the nine starters in the lineup getting at least one knock. They also walked nine times in game two as Pittsfield pitchers had a hard time finding the strike zone in this one. Wyatt Cameron came out of the Vermont bullpen to throw 5.2 innings of relief to get the win. He allowed seven hits and two runs. Now it was back to Vermont for a winner-take-all, game three.

Game three was the best one of the series and it was a close ballgame from start to finish. They were scoreless through four before Vermont put up a three-spot in the fifth. A two-run single by Jimmy Evans was followed by an RBI base hit from Cody Brouillette and staked the Lake Monsters to a 3-0 lead through five. It stayed that way until the ninth when Pittsfield put a scare into the home team. Facing Lake Monster relief pitcher Billy Oldham, the Suns leadoff hitter, Joel Lara, doubled to left. The next hitter, Jack Clooney, singled to left to bring Lars home with Pittsfield’s first run. After another base hit loaded the bases, Cabot Maher brought home the second run with a fielder’s choice to make it 3-2 Vermont. The Lake Monsters went back to the pen and called on Will Hesslink to finish the game. Instead, he plucked Thorbain to reload the bases with only one out. Vermont went back to the pen again for their third pitcher of the inning. This time they made the right choice as Chris Clark came on with the bases juiced and got back-to-back strikeouts of Mike Gervasi and Nate Cormier to end the game and give the Vermont Lake Monsters a 3-2 victory and a championship title.

Congrats to Vermont on winning the league in their first year with the Futures League. Hope you enjoyed our notes for this season and we look forward to next summer.