ERIE, Penn. – Was it the good hitting or the good pitching? Whatever it was, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats had no problem with the Erie SeaWolves on Tuesday afternoon, posting a comfortable 13-3 victory.
Eleven of those 13 runs came in the ‘Cats final four innings at bat, wiping out an early Erie lead with a three-run sixth inning and then annihilating any chance of an Erie comeback with another run in the eighth followed by seven runs in the ninth.
Will Robertson and Orelvis Martinez went deep for New Hampshire during the ninth inning offensive explosion, bringing the Fisher Cats up to 41 home runs so far this year, just three short of Somerset and Richmond for Eastern League team lead. Martinez now has 11 on the season, two ahead of Richmond’s Sean Roby.
New Hampshire had 18 hits in all, with seven doubles in addition to those pair of homers. Rafael Lantigua and Philip Clarke each went 4-for-5. Every Fisher Cat batter except for Sebastian Espino had at least one hit, with six Fisher Cats recording more than one base hit on the day.
Conversely, Erie did not record a hit after the fifth inning as three New Hampshire relievers limited the SeaWolves to just a pair of walks over the game’s final four frames. The first of those three relievers, Jake Elliott, got the win, climbing to 2-0 on the year after grabbing four outs in relief of starter Nick Fraze. Although Fraze couldn’t get a decision, he didn’t have a terrible day either, allowing four hits and hitting two Erie batters against nine strikeouts during his 4 1/3 innings of work.
New Hampshire (16-17) can get back to .500 on the year on Wednesday, with a 6:05 p.m. tilt at UPMC Park. New Hampshire’s Andrew Bash (0-0, 2.25 ERA) will seek his first Double-A win after demotion from Buffalo against Erie righthander Austin Bergner (0-1, 2.96 ERA).
