Opening Day Wrap-Up

What an Opening Day of baseball for the Minor League teams of New England! With three wins and one loss on the night for the locals, there is much to rejoice. And of course the one loss HAD to happen since New Hampshire and New Britain were facing each other.

The Fisher Cats beat the Rock Cats in New Britain last night by a score of 5-4. Starting pitcher Kyle Drabek, who landed in New Hampshire via the Roy Halliday trade, immediately lived up to his hype and the rest of the pitching staff that came in behind him did as well. Drabek and relievers Luis Perez and Danny Farquhar combined for 14 strikeouts and only gave up four Rock Cat hits. Brad Emaus went 3-for-5 with 2 RBIs on the evening for the Fisher Cats, including the tie-breaking RBI on a two-out infield single in the sixth inning. Drabek picked up his first win on the season while Rock Cats reliever Cole DeVries picked up the loss. Farquhar pitched in for the save.

Down in Pennsylvania, the Portland Sea Dogs homered their way to a 10-5 victory over the Reading Phillies. A five run fifth inning, capped by a Luis Exposito three run dinger, helped put Portland up for good. Ryan Kalish, Che-Hsuan Lin and Nate Spears also left the yard for the Sea Dogs. Felix Doubront pitched well enough to win, lasting 5 innings, giving up 2 earned runs, while scattering 3 hits and striking out 2. Reading starter Vance Worley was the losing pitcher after his slow start which included a lead-off home run to Kalish on the fifth pitch of the ballgame.

In Pawtucket, the Red Sox put on an offense show lead by Tug Hulett and Darnell McDonald. I was lucky enough to take this one in with Pops40. There is nothing like an Opening Day with your dad; cracking some peanuts, walking around the park, sharing stories and seeing a great game. The PawSox didn’t disappoint, putting together a grand show for the announced sellout crowd of 11,306 fans. From the opening ceremonies to the big 4 run 6th inning that put Sox in the driver's seat, the whole organization showed that they were ready to play ball. McDonald went 4-5 with a two singles, a double, a home run and 5 RBIs. Hulett went 3-5 with a single, double, home run and 3 RBIs. Both men were playing in their first game at Pawtucket and certainly impressed the faithful. The PawSox won the game 11-3 with reliever Joe Nelson picking up the victory.

I'm going to end the post with some of the better pictures I took from last night's game. I apologize for the quality of the live update pics during the game. I took those with my phone, so I need to work on that aspect of things a bit. In the meantime, enjoy these photos which were taken by an actual camera...albeit by a terrible photographer!

NOTE: Today's 12:05pm game between New Hampshire and New Britain was postponed due to rain. No make-up date has been announced.
The Pawtucket Red Sox game set for 7:05pm this evening has also been cancelled due to rain. It will be made up tomorrow as part of a single-admission double header starting at 1:00pm

OTHER NIGHT: Any Sox fans with a free day tomorrow should head down to Pawtucket to catch Dice-K in action. Game time is 1:05pm.