TRENTON - GAME RECAP

The Thunder, AA affiliate of the Red Sox, were taking on the Portland Sea Dogs, Florida's AA team. Things started poorly for Trenton who yielded two runs in the first on two singles and two walks, but they tied things up in the 2nd on two hit batsmen and two singles.

In the fourth, Sea Dog Heath Honeycutt doubled in a run and scored on a single by Abraham Nunez, giving Portland a 4-2 lead.  But Trenton responded in the bottom half of the inning with a triple, a walk, and two doubles of their own to take the lead 5-4. Nunez tied the game up with a shot to right field in the 6th and after 7 the game was still tied at 5.

At that point, Red Sox reliever Bryce Florie, down on the farm for a rehab assignment, was pitching for the Thunder. He had already completed one inning, but couldn't do the job in the 8th, hitting Dusty Wathan to lead off the frame and then giving up a single to Eric Gillespie. A Quincy Foster bunt was bobbled by catcher Ramos, and the bases were loaded with nobody out. A single, two walks, and another error later, the Sea Dogs had plated 4 runs and led 9-5. Trenton couldn't recover and the final was 9-5 Sea Dogs. 

Quincy Foster squares to bunt a Bryce Florie offering

One thing I must mention here is the Ballpark Bingo promotion. When you enter the stadium, you get a bingo card and a rules sheet. Each of the 8 Thunder position players is given 9 bingo numbers, one for each possible outcome of an at-bat (single, double, ground out, strike out, etc). For example if the catcher singles, the number is B-10. If you have B-10 on your card, you can mark it off and of course, any five in a row wins bingo. We don't know what the prizes were as we missed bingo when the right fielder grounded out to end the game (instead of doubling), but this promotion really gets you into the game - the only problem is that strike out is one of the options, so you have home fans screaming "We wanna a STRIKE OUT!" when their own players are up - very amusing.

Anyway, this game was a great minor league battle - lead changes, major leaguers on rehab, and fun promotions with an enthusiastic ballpark staff get this game an 8/10 rating.