Two days before the first game of the 2015 season, Manager John Schiffner sat his players down for a heart-to-heart at the end of practice. The topic was one of the great inevitabilities of playing baseball—failure. Specifically, Schiffner sought to impart onto his young players the idea that any failure in the game, no matter how great, is not insurmountable.

“That’s the great thing about baseball, said Schiffner. You have a lot of chances. You have a bad at-bat, come back the next one. You make an out at the plate, make a great play in the field. Make a bad pitch to this hitter, make three good ones to the next guy.”

Chatham and Brewster will be under the lights at Veterans Field tonight at 7 p.m.

Applying Schiffner’s highly-individualized message to a team context yields the next logical statement in the progression—if you lose one game, come back and win the next one. After falling to the Brewster Whitecaps (3-0) only twenty-four hours ago, the Anglers (2-1) already have an opportunity to do exactly that.

Despite the Brewster scoreboard indicating a six-run deficit at the end of last night’s contest, the Anglers put themselves in a position to challenge the Whitecaps multiple times. Chatham produced nine base runners and moved five of them into scoring position, though they ultimately had nothing to show for it at the end of the night.

The best scoring chances the Anglers generated were in the fourth and sixth innings when they loaded the bases with only one out. Both times a Chatham batter hit the ball hard, and both times the ball went straight to a Whitecap.

“I told [the team] it happens,” said Schiffner. “You have to come to the yard every night ready to play; you’re going to face a good team.”

If the Anglers are able to capitalize on the scoring chances they produce against the same good team tonight, they will have a good chance to even the season series with the Whitecaps at a game apiece. A victory would also move Chatham into a tie for first place in the East with Brewster, while a loss would knock the Anglers back down to the .500 mark.

First pitch is at 7 p.m. tonight (Friday) in Chatham. It is possible to view the live broadcast starting at 6:40 here.