In what will be his last lengthy outing for the club for a while due to the ABL beginning next weekend Lewis Thorpe put on a clinic throwing an amazing 66 of his 79 pitches for strikes. He scattered 3 hits over 7 scoreless innings of work whilst striking out 11 Newport Rams. As the ball/strike ratio would indicate he didn’t walk anyone which is important for him after working his way back to full match fitness.

Whilst Thopre was excellent his counterpart was his equal and also without pitch count limitations as import pitcher David Tongue threw a complete game gem striking out 12 Dragons in the 3-1 victory for the away side. Pitchers’ duels are often and enthralling contest, but someone always comes out on the wrong side and yesterday it was the Dragons. You just have to tip your cap to Tongue and prepare for the mid-week contest against Sunshine on Tuesday night.

Offensive highlights were few and far in between with only five hits recorded for the day. Takumi Tanaka in the lead off spot went 2 for 4 and was the lone run scored when we took an early lead in the 4th inning. He singled, stole second, was moved to third by a Brian Chen grounder putting him 90 feet from home. Centre fielder Jean Alvarado then came up clutch with a line drive to his contemporary having the home crowd up and about but unfortunately, we weren’t able to extend the lead at any point nor contain the Rams as they scored 3 in the last two innings.