Baseball is known as a game of inches, and Monday night’s Philly College Select League playoff matchup between the Philly Mummers and Rake proved just that — hinging on a bang-bang play at the plate that ultimately sent the Mummers into the semifinals.
Clinging to a 2-1 lead in the top of the seventh, the Mummers found themselves on the brink of giving it all away.
Rake’s Anthony Jakeman sparked the threat with a one-out walk, forcing Mummers starter Justin Marraccini out of the game.
What followed was chaos.
Reliever Quinn Erlandsen entered and induced a soft grounder to short, but the throw to first skipped low and wide. Jakeman turned on the jets and barreled toward home, poised to score the tying run.
Instead, he was tagged out by mere inches at the plate.
Crisis averted.
Erlandsen followed with a game-ending strikeout, sealing a 2-1 win and sending the Mummers into the next round. The chaotic final inning encapsulated what the Mummers had done well all game — poised pitching, timely defense, and manufacturing just enough offense.
“It’s a good team win and a high-leverage playoff game,” said Mummers head coach Greg Paprocki. “These guys have gotten better throughout the year of gaining an understanding of who we are as a team and what we need to do.”
“We’ve gone through a couple of skids during the season where our bats weren’t totally there,” he added, “but as we’ve gone on, we’ve talked a lot about just situational baseball and finding a way to squeeze out runs in big games, right in high-leverage situations. And today, against a lot of good arms, we were able to get base runners, work long counts, and put ourselves in a situation where we’re applying the pressure to them.”
The Mummers scratched together their runs with a bases-loaded walk by Bill Zentmayer in the third and a run on an error in the fourth after Nick Merunka scored.
Six hits were all they mustered — but that was all they needed, thanks to Marraccini.
The Elizabethtown College righty delivered 6.1 innings of calm and control, yielding just one run on five hits while striking out four. The lone blemish came in the fourth — an RBI triple off the bat of Rake’s Zach Neeld.
“I think I just adapted really well,” Marraccini said. “I go through the lineup the first time, I have one approach. The second time through, their hitters did a great job of adjusting to the game plan I was throwing. So it caused me to go to some of my pitches I don’t normally go to often, like my curveball or my cutter.”
The Mummers backed Marraccini with a string of clutch defensive moments. One inning before Jakeman was cut down at the plate, Rake attempted a double steal with runners on first and second — but catcher Dylan Hirsh had other plans, gunning down the lead runner at third. Marraccini then shut down the rally with a strikeout.
After Marraccini exited, it was Erlandsen’s turn to take over — again.
The do-it-all Mummer had already played shortstop for 6.1 innings, made multiple slick defensive plays, and collected two hits from the two-spot in the lineup.
Then came the call to pitch.
“I don’t take myself too seriously,” Erlandsen said. “It’s really easy to feel the pressure, because it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re only up by one. I need to help my team out and get an absolute stop.’ But it’s the so what mentality. It’s hey, my team needs me. I’ve got to get on that mound and I’ve got to throw strikes.”
Erlandsen and Marraccini are also college teammates at Elizabethtown, and that bond translated seamlessly to the summer grind. The trust between the two played a key role in navigating Monday’s playoff tension.
“It’s so nice to have the fact that he is my teammate in college,” Marraccini said. “I’ve been with this guy, I’ve hung out with this guy. I’ve played with him for a couple years now. So being able to have that trust, not only from this field, but also the field up at college, is super nice.”
“Being able to take the field together makes all the difference when you’re playing with guys you necessarily don’t know as well, as opposed to somebody I consider a brother,” Erlandsen added. “Knowing that, hey, [Marraccini is] on the bump. All right, we’re gonna have a good game today. And obviously, me being shortstop, I’m gonna make sure that I’m backing him up whenever a ball gets hit my way.”
The Mummers have now won four of their last five, with one tie mixed in — a hot stretch that’s propelled them into a semifinal matchup with the top-seeded Philly Quakers.
The mission now? Keep doing what’s been working.
“Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Paprocki said. “Let’s not make the moment too big and let’s keep playing good situational baseball and selfless baseball. We talked a lot about understanding situations this year — whether that’s a certain count or a certain situation with runners at a certain spot. So if our guys can really think through the game and come up and play good situational baseball, we can beat anybody. And I think today is a direct result of that when it comes to what we have been preaching.”
