Brotherly Pitcher-Catcher Pair A Critical Duo For Nauset

NORTH EASTHAM – Nauset baseball had a significant worry in the winter as the current season grew closer: the team wasn’t sure who would catch their top pitcher, Emmet Blatz.

 Emmet’s younger brother, Lyle, was considered. Another player, as it turned out, eventually stepped up, so that brother-brother pitcher-catcher duo didn’t happen.

 Except Emmet, when he’s not on the mound, is also Nauset’s daily catcher. And Lyle is in the Warriors’ rotation too. Lyle didn’t end up catching Emmet, but it was basically a certainty that Emmet was going to catch Lyle. The brothers, both when they’re together in the battery or outside of it, form an essential pair for Nauset.

“Even if we weren't brothers, I just think he's the guy who I would want to pitch to, and we're sort of always on the same page it seems like,” Lyle, a sophomore, said. “A lot of the time I'll be thinking of a pitch I want to throw, and then he just gives me the sign.”

Siblings playing on the same team isn’t exactly uncommon, but brothers positioned as pitcher and catcher in one lineup is a rarer sight. In Major League Baseball, for perspective, just nine all-brother batteries have appeared since 1900, according to Sarah Langs, a writer and researcher for MLB.com.

The concept of two siblings taking the field together reaches a different level when one stands on the rubber and the other crouches behind home plate. Pitchers need to believe in their catchers with nearly unfailing faith. Catchers need to know their pitchers better than they know themselves, and better than the pitcher knows himself. Maybe it’s no wonder then that Emmet feels like, compared with other pitchers on the team, he can tell what Lyle is thinking better, and that they’re on the same page more often, and that they even have less meetings on the mound.

“You can work together a little easier than with some other guys, just because I know him and he trusts me a little more,” said Emmet, a senior captain.

Emmet and Lyle, two grades apart, hadn’t ever played on the same team until Lyle made varsity as a freshman last year. They grew up in Los Angeles where their dad, Jesse, worked and where Emmet would catch Lyle’s bullpens in the backyard. The family returned to Jesse’s hometown of Brewster when the kids were in middle school. A realization unspooled then once they both started playing for Nauset that they had been throwing together for a very long time.

“I'd call him the easiest pitcher to catch, because I've done it so much,” Emmet said.

Like so many other siblings, the two brothers are similar, but different. They used to get mistaken for twins at the grocery store, but not so much anymore. Lyle, the younger, is taller and lankier. He throws a changeup, Emmet a splitter. Lyle’s slider has a little more sweep. Emmet thinks Lyle will probably throw harder in the long run. 

At the beginning of his junior year, Emmet approached head coach Brett Labonte to inquire about how to get bigger and stronger. Labonte gave him a pretty simple blueprint. Emmet proceeded to put on about 40 pounds, add 15 miles per hour to his fastball and become Nauset’s ace. He suits up at catcher on those days when he’s not heading the Warriors rotation. He’s also committed to pitch at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.

Emmet and Lyle, according to Labonte, drive up to Middleborough to work with a personal trainer. A couple other players do as well, but Lyle is the only sophomore.

“I'm very lucky to have Emmet around, and Lyle is following right in his footsteps,” Labonte said. “Lyle is lucky that he has Emmet as an older brother to set the example on what's expected as a leader and the effort you put in in the offseason.”

When Lyle isn’t pitching, he’s playing up the middle in the infield. And he’s hitting out of Nauset’s two-hole. Nearly halfway through the season, Lyle was batting .360 for the Warriors (4-6) and was first on the team in doubles and second in runs batted in.

“Two very great players to have,” Labonte said. “Just good kids. Understand what's expected of them. It's funny they come from the same house, and I'm glad that they have the opportunity to play together. It’s a pretty cool thing.”

As the team leans more into Emmet calling pitches during games, the confidence and trust shared by him and Lyle sharpens further. It does in fact help quite a lot, perhaps unsurprisingly, to have an older brother behind the plate to pitch to.

“I wish they were twins so I could have that combo for three more years,” Labonte said.

Something occasionally said by a catcher on a baseball diamond, in spots like when a baserunner keeps glinting in a pitcher’s peripheral vision: “Just me and you.” Just like the bullpens in the backyard in California. For Nauset, just two brothers.