TRENTON, NJ – Ali Castillo singled home Jose Rosario and Tony Renda with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning to finish off a 2-1 comeback victory for the Thunder over the Reading Fightin Phils in front of 7,339 fans at ARM & HAMMER Park on Friday night.
The Thunder and Fightin Phils played a scoreless ball game into the ninth inning when Reading finally broke through against reliever Taylor Garrison. Cam Perkins singled and stole second to put himself in scoring position for Brock Stassi. Stassi then laced a double up the alley in right-center to take a 1-0 lead for the visitors.
However, the Thunder offense had a rally in their bats as Rob Segedin worked a one-out walk in the ninth inning against Edubray Ramos. Jose Rosario pinch-ran for Segedin at first and Tony Renda singled him to third to put runners into scoring position for the Thunder. After Danny Oh was intentionally walked, Castillo punched a base hit down the right field run to score two and give the Thunder their eighth walk-off victory of the season.
Starters Zach Eflin and Caleb Smith each threw seven shutout innings on Friday night. Smith twirled his seventh quality start of the season, allowing just five hits and two walks.
1B Rob Segedin extended his on-base streak to a season-best 11 games with a 1-for-3 effort.
With losses by both teams in front of them, the Thunder stand 2.5 games back of Binghamton for the Wild Card spot in the East division and 5.0 games behind Reading for the top spot in the division.
Your Thunder will play game two of their series with Reading on Saturday night at ARM & HAMMER Park at 7:00pm. RHP Cale Coshow (0-1, 9.00) will start for the Thunder, RHP Jake Thompson (2-0, 1.29) will go for Reading. Saturday night is Visit Princeton Night presented by the Princeton Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau. All fans can enjoy post-game fireworks, presented by VisitPrinceton.org. Listen live to Thunder baseball on 91.3 WTSR and online at Trentonthunder.combeginning at 6:40pm.
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