Fisher Cats 7, Flying Squirrels 6
- Updated: August 5, 2022
MANCHESTER — New Hampshire pitching set a franchise record for strikeouts in a game, and John Aiello played walk-off hero in an electric win on Thursday night at Delta Dental Stadium. The Fisher Cats (14-16, 45-54) fought from four-down to earn a 7-6 win over the Richmond Flying Squirrels (San Francisco Giants, 10-19, 50-48).
Aiello stepped to the plate with one out in the bottom of the ninth and took a 0-1 fastball deep over the right field wall for the win. The homer was his sixth of the season and the first walk-off home run for New Hampshire since Cavan Biggio did it on August 16, 2018.
Trailing, 6-2, after five innings, the Fisher Cats scored in every frame for the rest of the game. Zach Britton helped spark the comeback, going 3-for-5 with two runs and two RBIs. In the seventh, he legged out a one-out double on a line drive that looked like a surefire single and came home on an Addison Barger single.
With New Hampshire down, 6-4, in the eighth, Britton blasted a two-run homer over the right field fence to tie the game. The bomb was his first with the Fisher Cats this season.
Barger had another great night, finishing 2-for-4 with two RBIs. He has nine multi-hit games in 17 Double-A starts. His sacrifice fly put the Fisher Cats on the board in the bottom of the first.
Pitching was stellar for most of the night, save for a six-run top of the fifth inning. Four pitchers—Adam Kloffenstein, Sean Mellen, Braden Scott and Jimmy Burnette—combined for 19 strikeouts, the most in a single game in franchise history.
Kloffenstein worked shutout through the first four innings with five hits, no walks and six strikeouts. In the fifth, he ran into trouble and came out for Mellen, who struck out four.
Lefty Braden Scott struck out six of the seven batters he faced across the seventh and eighth innings, tying his career-high for punchouts. Burnette had three strikeouts, too. The final 13 outs that Richmond made at the plate were all strikeouts.
Will Robertson and Ryan Gold were bright spots, too. Robertson tallied his first hit with the Fisher Cats since returning from the injured list on August 2, and Gold homered in the second inning.
The walk-off win was New Hampshire’s fifth of the season and first since June 25 versus Altoona.
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