TRENTON, N.J. – Being on the wrong end of a walk-off result is bad enough, but twice in one day?
The New Hampshire Fisher Cats faced that dilemma on Saturday, walking home the winning run in two contests against the Trenton Thunder, a 5-4 nine-inning extra-innings loss followed by a 3-2 defeat.
In the first contest, New Hampshire’s Jon Berti and Trenton’s Jorge Saez traded homers in the fifth, opening up a 2-1 Trenton lead that held until Berti came home again in the seventh off a Connor Panas double.
New Hampshire would take the lead in the eighth and retake the lead in the ninth, but Trenton was determined to put the game away in the bottom of the ninth. There, New Hampshire Hurler Corey Copping allowed three of the inning’s first four batters to reach base, not including Gosuke Katoh, who began the inning on second base under Eastern League extra inning rules.
Katoh came home to tie up the contest another time on a Saez single and with the bases loaded, Bruce Campbell got a free pass to first base on four straight pitches, allowing Jhalan Jackson to walk 90 feet from third base to victory.
New Hampshire Starting Pitcher Jon Harris certainly deserved the win, allowing just six hits and a walk in six innings of work, with only the home run by Saez blemishing his day. However, Trenton’s Brian Keller made an even better case for earning more than a no decision, scattering just four hits in seven innings.
Instead, the win went to Trevor Lane for his work in the seventh and eighth, allowing four hits and a walk plus a pair of unearned runs during New Hampshire’s late rallies.
Lane climbs to 1-1 with the result while the loss was the first for Copping in the Eastern League.
Along with Saez, Jackson and Bruce Caldwell collected a pair of hits while Berti led the way for New Hampshire with a 3-for-4 showing.
In the second game, New Hampshire put two runs on the board in the opening frame and dominated the Thunder from there with just two crucial exceptions.
The first came in the third courtesy of Caldwell, whose two-run dinger tied up the contest. That was followed another late collapse, this one a three-walk seventh inning by Dusty Issacs.
Outside of Campbell’s bomb, Crawford got the only other Trenton hit of the game, while the Thunder allowed three errors.
Still, the Fisher Cats could not string anything together after the first, going 2-for-10 with men in scoring position and leaving eight men on base.
Andrew Guillotte and Bo Bichette ended with multiple hits while New Hampshire Starting Pitcher Josh DeGraaf left after the fourth, retiring 12 of the 15 batters he faced.
Isaacs fell to 3-3 while the win went to David Sosebee, now 4-2. Sosebee provided Trenton with their final four outs of the contest.
Trenton is now 2 ½ games behind New Hampshire for home field advantage in the Eastern Division finals. After Saturday’s action a mix of either nine Trenton wins or Reading losses will ensure that Trenton and New Hampshire meet again in the postseason.
In the meantime, the two teams meet again on Sunday at 5 p.m. as Jordan Romano (10-7, 3.66 ERA) takes the mound for New Hampshire against Trenton’s Ryan Bollinger (7-4, 3.84 ERA).
