BY MATT STOUT
So far this season, the Salem baseball team has been nearly perfect. On Monday, May 14, so was Connor Nolan.
The Blue Devils’ ace struck out 14 Manchester Central batters, including four of the final five hitters, to finish off a no-hitter in Salem’s 6-0 win at Gill Stadium.
A walk and two errors in the fifth inning was all that separated Nolan from a perfect game, but the senior had more to worry about that inning. The walk and miscues loaded the bases with two out before Nolan induced a groundout to end the threat.
The Blue Devils’ offense then gave Nolan the cushion he needed, adding a run in the sixth and three more in the seventh, including two on a single from Brian White, who finished 2-for-5 with three RBI.
The victory, Nolan’s fifth against no losses, upped Salem’s win streak to nine and its record to a Class L-best 13-1 entering a showdown with Bishop Guertin of Nashua on Wednesday, May 16. Nolan also lowered his ERA to a team-best 1.21 through 29 innings pitched. He now has 53 strikeouts and has yielded 15 hits.
Hal Landers, Ben Lawlor and Matt Delaney, Salem’s No. 1 through 3 hitters, all scored twice in the win.
The victory was just the latest in Salem’s run of impressive performances, which also included a 10-9 come-from-behind win at Winnacunnet on May 9.
In that game, the Blue Devils overcame a five-run fourth inning from Winnacunnet to score three in the fifth and five more in the sixth to finally take the lead.
White, who leads the team with 25 RBI entering Wednesday, led the way, driving in four runs and scoring another on a 3-for-3 day. Delaney went 2-for-4, scored three times and drove in a pair, while Landers, Evan Valcourt and Matt Hardy all added an RBI of their own to help propel the comeback.
Reliever Joe O’Dell settled down after his shaky fourth inning to pitch three scoreless frames, striking out four to earn his second victory of the year.
Diamond cuts
Nolan isn’t the only Salem pitcher terrorizing the league.
Entering Wednesday, Landers sat at 2-0 with a 1.70 ERA; Hardy, also at 2-0, sported a 2.27 ERA; and Eric Perrault, despite being shaken up for three earned runs in three innings against Winnacunnet, had struck out 15 batters through 13 1/3 innings for a 1-0 record.
On offense, White, at .440, is one of four players batting above .400, including Valcourt, at .479 with 18 RBI; Larry Weymouth, at .478 with a team-best .571 on-base percentage; and Hardy, at an even .400 with 13 runs scored and seven RBI.
Landers, batting .356, leads the team with 20 runs. Josh Jones is second with four doubles, and Lawlor has drawn a team-high 14 walks.