Trammell and Swader go back-to-back as Thunder snap skid with 5-0 shutout of Black Bears
Trenton Thunder Ballpark sat at eighty-one degrees for a 7:05 p.m. first pitch, and the Thunder, a team that had dropped five straight, seemed to have had enough. After being outscored 27-16 in the last 45 innings of play, Billy Morris walked to the mound and gave the Thunder exactly what they needed. He worked seven scoreless innings in a game that stayed a tight standoff into the sixth.
The first five innings were a test of wills. Morris and West Virginia’s Drew Townson traded zeroes. After throwing a scoreless first, Morris himself got the crowd going in the bottom of the first with a leadoff single over the first baseman’s head, before he was caught stealing second. West Virginia never found an extra gear at the plate either; its five hits on the night were all singles.
Trenton finally broke through in the sixth, and it came the hard way. West Virginia starter Drew Townson walked the first two batters he faced before being pulled mid-inning, and the bases didn’t fill up until Casen Taggart’s bunt single down the third base line put Trenton in business against the bullpen. Louis Percival reached on a fielder’s choice that cut down a runner at the plate but kept the bases loaded, and Daniel Murillo drew a bases-loaded walk to force in the game’s first run, 1 to 0. The bases were still loaded when Michael Whooley popped out to end the inning.
That one run appeared to be all the confidence the Thunder needed to blow it open. In the seventh, with Cy Turner on second, Bryson Trammell made them pay with a swing that sent the ball 387 feet over the right-center field wall, his third homer of the season off reliever Reilly Shafer. Not to be outdone, AJ Swader, who the ballpark announcer never tires of introducing in full, “A! J! SWADER!”, took Shafer deep again, 407 feet, a solo shot to center. The back-to-back blasts gave the Thunder a 4-to-0 lead.
Trenton tacked on an insurance run in the eighth when Brayden Fraasman lined a single up the middle to score Louis Percival. John Hacker took over on the mound and worked around the West Virginia lineup in order across the eighth and ninth to complete the shutout.
Player of the Game: Billy Morris
Morris did the heavy lifting on a night the Thunder needed exactly that. Seven innings, five hits allowed, zero earned runs, six strikeouts, and the win, snapping a five-game losing streak in the process. He picked up a base hit of his own in the first inning for good measure. It is the kind of start that keeps him near the top of the MLB Draft League leaderboard for wins, while lowering his ERA to 2.73.
Moment of the Game: Trammell and Swader, Back-to-Back
There is nothing like it in sports. Home runs in general are euphoric for a crowd, but back-to-back home runs are a rare emotional peak. Both balls came off Reilly Shafer in the seventh. A one-run lead is never entirely comfortable, and two swings later the game felt like it was under control.
By the Numbers
Swader’s homer was his seventh of the season and pushed his RBI total to 32 on the year, a stretch that includes four home runs over his last six games. Trammell’s blast was his third of the season and came with two walks on the night, giving him a multi-walk, multi-RBI game. West Virginia’s staff issued 10 walks against just four strikeouts, a wild outing that let Trenton control most at-bats. Trenton’s pitching went the opposite direction, needing just one walk to rack up eight strikeouts. Trenton finished with six hits and twelve total bases to West Virginia’s five hits and five total bases. The win improves Trenton to 37 and 32 on the season. Attendance was 6,172, with a game time of two hours and fifty minutes.
Storyline to Watch
The win snaps a five-game skid and hands Trenton some momentum heading into the finale home game of the season. The Thunder move to 18 and 22 in the second half as they try to finish the season strong, with the regular season winding down on September 1.
The article was written by MJ Burk
