Adams fans 10 as Thunder complete sweep
TRENTON >> Chance Adams was so good on Wednesday afternoon, he pitched himself right out of a win.
As strange as that sounds, the righthander didn’t record the required five innings because he reached his pitch limit after 4 1/3, mainly because he was busy matching a career-best 10 strikeouts.
Instead of his ninth win, the 22-year-old, rated as the Yankees’ 14th best prospect by MLB Pipeline, settled for a no-decision in what was eventually a 4-1 Thunder victory and three-game sweep of Bowie.
“Yeah, I did all right,” Adams chuckled. “Obviously, I would have liked to go a little deeper.”
Adams, in his first full season as a starter, is having his workload limited, especially later in the year now that he’s up to 127 1/3 innings after throwing just 35 1/3 in his first professional season.
“I knew I had a lot of strikeouts and a few battles so I figured it was probably getting close,” Adams said. “I wanted to finish that inning, but (Bowie’s Adrian) Marin had a battle there at the end, which is kind of what he does.”
He made the most of his 87 pitches on Wednesday, recording his first seven outs via strikeout and fanning the side in the first, second and fourth. But manager Bobby Mitchell had to pull his starter after Marin fouled a number of pitches and worked a walk with one out in the fifth.
“You can’t fault him for that,” Mitchell said. “It’s pretty much automatic when it gets to (85 pitches). It’s hard to go out there and do it. You’re like, ‘Just hit the ball fair,’ so you at least have a shot for the last hitter.”
Adams allowed a first-inning run, but the Thunder (81-49) quickly erased the deficit with two in their first at-bats. Tyler Wade led off with a double and Dustin Fowler followed with an RBI single and later scored on Mark Payton groundout.
Fowler finished 2-for-3, collecting his third consecutive multi-hit game.
Michael O’Neill plated Dante Bichette Jr. with a sacrifice fly in the second and Jose Rosario singled home Miguel Andujar in the fifth, putting Trenton ahead, 4-1.
J.P. Feyereisen worked 2 2/3 scoreless innings of relief to pick up the win and J.R. Graham registered a six-out save since closer Tyler Jones was unavailable, having saved the opening two games of the series.
The three Thunder pitchers limited Bowie (52-77) to five hits, keeping the visitors off the bases by striking out 16.