Fisher Cats 9, Baysox 1

BOWIE, Md. – The New Hampshire Fisher Cats (12-17, 40-57) downed the Chesapeake Baysox (12-17, 43-53) at Prince George’s Stadium on Friday night, 9-1.

Fisher Cats second baseman Eddinson Paulino crushed a go-ahead homer to lead off the top of the sixth inning. Following nine strikeouts in four innings from Fisher Cats starter Trey Yesavage, reliever Pat Gallagher turned in three shutout relief frames and four strikeouts to guide New Hampshire to its second straight win.

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Box Score

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Making his seventh start with New Hampshire, Yesavage collected nine strikeouts and allowed one run in four innings pitched. Toronto’s No. 2 prospect (MLB Pipeline) upped his strikeout total to 125, most among Toronto farmhands, across 18 total outings. Gallagher (W, 2-2) took over in the bottom of the fifth inning and tossed three scoreless frames while allowing two hits and punching out four. Righty Chay Yeager pitched a scoreless eighth inning before Johnathan Lavallee handled the ninth, allowing one run with three walks and three strikeouts.

Top takeaways:

• New Hampshire pitching racks up 16 punchouts
• RHP Trey Yesavage picks up nine strikeouts for new Double-A high in four-inning start
• RHP Pat Gallagher tosses three scoreless relief frames, waives four
• INF Eddinson Paulino ties team lead with 10th homer
• Fisher Cats score nine runs on three hits, go 1-for-10 with RISP thanks to six Baysox errors

Chesapeake starter Trey Gibson struck out six and walked one in five innings of work. Gibson surrendered an unearned run and one hit before righty reliever Carter Rustad (L, 0-1) pitched 1 2/3 innings of relief. Rustad allowed two runs, one earned on two hits with four strikeouts. Baysox lefty reliever Raùl Alcantara gave up three unearned runs on no hits in 2/3 relief innings, and righty Yaqui Rivera tossed the final 1 2/3 innings, allowing three unearned runs.

Chesapeake opened the scoring in the bottom of the third inning when left fielder Jalen Vasquez knocked a lead-off double and scored on second baseman Aron Estrada’s single, giving the Baysox an early 1-0 lead.

Tied 1-1 in the top of the sixth inning, Paulino drilled a solo homer to right-center field to put the Fisher Cats in front, 2-1. Paulino, who entered the game for injured first baseman Jackson Hornung in the third inning, became the third Fisher Cats hitter to reach the 10-homer mark this season, joining third baseman Charles McAdoo and Jace Bohrofen. Since returning from the injured list on July 22, Paulino is hitting .375 with four homers and seven runs driven in across five games played.

New Hampshire added one more run in the top of the sixth after left fielder Victor Arias reached on a Chesapeake error and scored on second baseman Ryan McCarty’s single to make it 3-1.

The Fisher Cats would capitalize on two more Baysox errors in the top of the eighth inning and scored three runs without recording a hit. Paulino opened the frame with a walk before back-to-back errors allowed two runs to score and made it 5-1. After reaching on an error, McAdoo stole third and scored on a wild pitch to extend New Hampshire’s lead to 6-1. The Fisher Cats plated three more runs in the top of the ninth inning on three walks, two errors and a wild pitch to make it 9-1.

Chesapeake scored one run on a bases-loaded wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning to finalize the scoring at 9-2, New Hampshire. New Hampshire and Chesapeake are set to play a doubleheader starting at 5:05 p.m. on Saturday.

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