The Trenton Thunder ushered in the Bobby Mitchell era by dropping their season opener to the Erie Seawolves by a score of 7-0 at ARM & HAMMER Park on Thursday night.
Thunder starter Brady Lail had good movement on his fastball early on, but struggled to find consistent command of his secondary pitches which forced him into early trouble.
In the second inning, SeaWolves catcher Austin Green parked a 1-1 offering from Lail over the left field fence for a three-run homer. Erie plated four runs in the inning to take a 4-0 lead.
“I honestly tried to do too much today,” admitted Lail. “I got way too excited, especially those first two innings. Early in the game I was struggling with getting that secondary pitch to work.”
Lail added, “I had to live off of my fastball and that kind of hurt me. The one mistake that I made was the home run. In all I felt good, but I didn’t execute my secondary stuff well.”
The Thunder squandered their best opportunity of the night in the bottom of the sixth inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, right fielder Lane Adams hit a dribbler back to pitcher Gabe Hemmer to end the threat.
“We had a couple of chances but couldn’t get the big hit,” said Mitchell. “That’s going to happen; we’re going to have nights like that but overall I think we hit the ball hard.”
Reliever Matt Wotherspoon threw 2.1 innings of clean relief with three strikeouts before lefty Matt Tracy surrendered three runs in the ninth inning.
The Thunder offense managed just six hits on the evening, two of which came from shortstop Tyler Wade out of the leadoff spot.
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