For Ben Bowden, the summer of 2015 set everything in motion.
Up until that point, the former Lynn English (Mass.) star pitcher was a low-profile reliever for Vanderbilt coming off an unremarkable sophomore season. Then he arrived at the Cape League and announced his presence to the baseball scouting community, submitting an utterly dominating season for the Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox.
Bowden’s 0.30 ERA with 43 strikeouts in 30 innings helped lead his team to the league championship, and suddenly Bowden found himself elevated as a prospect.
“I started getting a lot more attention after that,” Bowden said. “Freshman year, I didn’t pitch a whole lot. Sophomore year, I was in an eighth-inning role. I closed a couple games but it wasn’t a dominant year for me. But then I went to the Cape and things just fell into place. I was very comfortable with a great group of guys around me and things took off from there.
