HARTFORD, Conn. – Forest Wall began his New Hampshire Fisher Cats tenure on Thursday with a home run against his teammates from just a few hours earlier, helping New Hampshire coast to a 7-3 win over the Hartford Yard Goats.
Wall and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. each contributed solo home runs in the victory, a victory that seemed up for grabs early on in the contest.
Both teams traded leads to start, with Max Pentecost’s RBI single in the second bringing Cavan Biggio around to provide New Hampshire an initial advantage. They’d quickly recover that advantage with Wall’s third inning blast, negating a two RBI double from Hartford’s Mylz Jones in the bottom of the second.
Pentecost would finally provide the breakthrough in the sixth with a double to left, bringing Harold Ramirez home for the go ahead run, with Guerrero’s home run to left in the seventh and a two-run triple from Jon Berti in the eighth providing additional insurance.
Although Hartford would claw back one run in the bottom of the eighth, another RBI double, this time from Harold Ramirez, would put the cherry on top of New Hampshire’s 57th win of the year.
Ramirez and Pentecost would each end the day 3-for-5 with Berti and Guerrero also chipping in two hits apiece for New Hampshire.
For Hartford, Yonathan Daza led the way, grabbing two of Hartford’s six hits on the evening.
Jon Harris bounced back from a difficult start against Harrisburg last week, lasting six innings to get the win, while the loss went to Jesus Tinoco, his third of the year against the Fisher Cats.
New Hampshire ended the night with 13 total hits, nine of which came off Tinoco, who also allowed four runs and a walk while striking out eight in his 6 2/3 innings of work.
Tinoco fell to 6-9 on the year while Harris climbs to 8-4.
The series continues on Friday at 7:05 p.m. as New Hampshire ace Jordan Romano (9-4, 3.55 ERA) faces off against Hartford’s Rico Garcia (3-0, 2.63 ERA).
