CHATHAM, Mass. — JT Quinn saw his left fielder was down, so he decided to pick him up.

Falmouth catcher David McCann stood at third base with no outs in the top of the second inning. A few pitches earlier, McCann skied a high-arcing fly ball into left field where Chatham’s Daniel Jackson (Georgia) squared himself for the catch. But he dropped it. A Little League mistake. By the time the ball smacked the outfield grass, McCann was rounding first base. He then advanced to third off a wild pitch. A run due to Jackson’s mistake seemed inevitable.

The feeling couldn’t have sat well with Jackson, though there was nothing to fear. His Georgia teammate, Quinn, was there for his fellow dog. Quinn trusted his stuff — a filthy slider and a corner-painting fastball — threw strikes and let it rip.

Strikeout. Strikeout. Strikeout. And a calm strut back to the A’s dugout for good measure.

“Just executing pitches; that’s all it comes down to, and I felt like I did that,” Quinn said. “(I) just picked up my guy.”

Unleashing a hellfire of blistering sliders and mid-90s fastballs, Quinn tossed a five-inning, 10-strikeout gem in his Cape Cod Baseball League debut. Despite Chatham’s (0-1, 0-0 East) two-hit offensive showing in its 1-0 loss to Falmouth (1-0, 0-0 West), Quinn’s performance stood above the rest. He ignited a masterful Anglers pitching effort in Saturday’s season-opener, aided by four scoreless frames from southpaw Charlie Foster (Mississippi State).

Neither Quinn or Foster could stop Commodores’ starter Kaden Echeman from tossing four scoreless to spur a shutout. Still, however much time left he has on the Cape, it’s clear Quinn is the Anglers’ ace until someone dares to challenge him. For first-year manager Dennis Cook, it makes Saturday’s rough night at the dish a bit easier to digest.

“(Quinn) threw tons of strikes, mixed (his pitches) well, and that’s all we’re going to ask of our guys: Fill it up, dominate the zone and we live with the results,” Cook said. “Tonight, they got one more broken-bat-hit than we did. So, it was a good game.”

Quinn, a 6-foot-6 righty, entered the summer fresh off a breakout junior campaign with Georgia after transferring from Ole Miss. He racked up 49 strikeouts in 36.0 innings and finished nine of 17 appearances with zero earned runs. His 2.75 earned run average dwarfed his previous numbers with the Rebels — an 8.84 ERA in 2024, and 6.83 mark in 2023.

Even though it was Quinn’s first game with catcher Noah Miller (Michigan) as his battery mate, he looked like he was in midseason form. Cook said he puts it on the players to call their own pitches, and Quinn said he and Miller were in lockstep mixing up his pitch arsenal throughout the game. It was still on Quinn to execute. He did so in spectacular fashion.

He was locked in, evidenced by his 65.7% strike percentage.

“I think that was the biggest part — landing strikes, getting ahead and the rest kind of takes care of itself,” Quinn said.



Batters on both sides began a chilly, sub-60 degree night at Veterans Field just as you’d expect: by striking out a ton. Quinn led off the night by K’ing Falmouth’s Carl Schmidt, while Echeman responded by striking out the Anglers’ 2-4 hitters; Jake Hanley (Indiana), Henry Ford (Virginia/portal) and Isaiah Lane (UC San Diego).

Following Quinn’s spellbinding second-inning display, he was flawlessly matched by Echeman, who kept the A’s from reaching third base in both the second and third frames. Neither side could hit water if they fell out of a boat — 18 outs, 12 strikeouts; zero hits. Each starter had six Ks entering the fourth.

Quinn heavily used his slider to fend off Falmouth’s bats, a pitch he says he’s significantly developed over the past year. It’s his strikeout pitch. The key for him wasn’t movement — he’s got plenty — but location. His goal is to locate it glove side and down.

“When I do that, it’s really hard to hit it,” Quinn said of his slider, without a hint of bashfulness.

A 1-2-3 fourth inning preceded Quinn’s lone blunder. He got knocked around a tad in the fifth, hitting a batter and giving up an RBI single to Falmouth right fielder Antonio Morales. After he finished his night by ringing up Carl Schmidt on a low and away slider, Quinn completed his CCBL debut with just one hit allowed across five innings of work.

It’s rare to have a start that long in the Cape League. It’s even rarer to lose when posting those kinds of numbers. Yet, both proved to be true Saturday in Quinn’s case. The Anglers’ bats never awakened, tallying one hit against the Commodores’ bullpen arms.

Falmouth southpaw Conner Linn replaced Echeman in the bottom of the fifth, and picked up right where the Commodores’ starter left off by striking out A’s designated hitter Cole Johnson (Austin Peay). With one out, Travis Sanders (Baylor) drew a walk against Linn, though a Hanley groundout to the pitcher stranded Chatham’s second runner in scoring position. The A’s struggles persisted in the sixth, as they left another runner on base in scoring position.

Foster kept the Commodores scoreless the rest of the way, helping the strikeout total for Falmouth batters reach 16. Foster closed his relief outing with 4.0 shutout innings and six punchouts.

Still, like Quinn, his performance was continuously met by a faltering Chatham offense. Three straight swinging strikeouts by the Anglers’ 1-2-3 hitters in the bottom of the eighth effectively sealed Saturday’s outcome. The A’s created no momentum in the ninth against Sabbath, who K’d a pair of Anglers to close out Falmouth’s victory.

Echeman got the help Quinn didn’t, and that cost Chatham in the end. Cook said the Anglers need to improve their two-strike plate approach. But with time to shake off some rust, those issues are fixable. For now, Chatham housing two potential premium Cape League arms on its pitching staff is its version of a moral victory.

But real wins will come when the A’s offense supports their arms — just as Quinn did for Jackson.

“That’s what you look for,” Cook said of Quinn. “A guy that competes hard and picks his teammates up.”