Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua Defenders pitcher Henri Boudreau has had a couple of quality starts already during this young summer season.

The pitching seems to be on par with the hitting and ahead of the defense after the first two weeks of local summer baseball.

For example, the Nashua Defenders of the New Hampshire COVID Baseball League (NHCBL) have gotten a couple of quality performances out of starter Henri Boudreau and others.

Hudson of the New England Independent Baseball League (NEIBL) has had some good pitching in its 3-0-1 start, none better than Adam Charn’s 3-hit shutout earlier this week vs. Amherst.

“Given opportunities, he wants to compete,” Hudson coach Steve Beals said of Charn. “And that’s all we want.”

Merrimack’s Nick Wilson in the NHCBL has held his own on the mound as well, and head coach Mike Henzley has gotten some mileage out of a small group of relievers.

“The pitchers have been keeping us in the game,” Nashua manager Tim Lunn said. “None of our pitchers have thrown bad yet. So that’s helped. But we have to help them.”

And the pitchers seem to be making the catchers mits pop in both leagues, throwing hard. Amherst’s Isaiah Gutierrez of the NEIBL was doing that in relief the other night vs. Hudson; he would have played his senior season at Nashua North.

“I think guys are just amped up,” Amherst coach Tom Walker said. “They’re loose. We built up nicely. The guys are in shape.”

The key is for teams to get into a groove defensively to back up their pitchers. That was Nashua’s problem in its 1-3 NHCBL start before earlier this week when the Defenders routed Dover 12-4.

“We kept shooting ourselves in the foot defensively, and we had good at bats but we just weren’t getting balls to fall,” Lunn said. “At some point we had to just break through.”

And Hudson the other night backed up Charn with errorless ball in a 6-0 win.

“We played clean,” Hudson coach Steve Beals said. It’s the second time we’ve been on the field, with no errors.”

XXXXXX

Nashua, according to the schedule, isn’t slated to play until Monday night at Laconia, but you can bet coaches and pitchers are hearing the word of what a tough out Defenders first baseman Dan Trezpacz, the former Souhegan standout, is. He homered in Nashua’s opener and boomed two triples earlier this week.

“He’s swinging it really well right now, he’s seeing the ball well,” Lunn said. “He put two really, really good charges into the ball. … He’s going to be big in the middle of the lineup.

“If everyone can keep doing what we’re doing, it’s going to help us.”

XXXXXX

Walker doubles as the NEIBL president and feels his league is off to a good start.

“I think the baseball in this league top to bottom is very good,” Walker said. “You get the opener out of the way, these guys are coming from five different schools, it’s going to take a little time to jell. But I think we’re going to be pretty good when all is said and done.”

XXXXXX

In NEIBL action on Friday, Merrimack won a thriller over Hollis Brookline, 1-0, thanks to Nick Demattia’s RBI double in the top of the seventh.

Pitchers Mike Grover and Danny Morin combined for the shoutout while fanning six. Evan Roy went 2 for 3 for Merrimack, now 1-2. HB fell to 0-2.

Newsletter