Somerset Patriots
We drive on to Somerset County in New Jersey to see the Somerset Patriots, the Double-A affiliate of the Yankees, as they host the Bowie Baysox.
We I took a fairly direct route from our hotel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to Mannville, New Jersey. Dad had recovered from his cold, but now I wasn’t feeling so hot. So we decided to tap the brakes a bit on seeing sights and instead see Oppenheimer at a multiplex in Mannville. The theater was nearly empty. The subject matter was not exactly relaxing, but it was good to be forced to sit still for a while.
This unexpected detour bypassed the Thai lunch we planned to have in neighboring Somerville, a former Dutch colony and the county seat of Somerset County. But we stopped in Somerville after the movie to have a look at its pleasant Main Street.
Our lazy morning turned into a lazy afternoon, and we returned to the hotel to rest up for our game with the Somerset Patriots, the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees.
The Patriots play at TD Bank Ballpark, just north of Somerville in Bridgewater, New Jersey. They were one of the founding members of the independent Atlantic League in 1998, playing on the road for the entire season as they waited for TD Bank Ballpark to be built. The Patriots won six titles in their 22 years in the Atlantic League.
In 2020, more than 40 Minor League teams lost their Major League affiliations in a restructuring aimed at focusing the Minor League system while also demanding better facilities for players and staff. During that shakeup, Somerset was one of the very few franchises that was promoted into the Minor League system, replacing the Trenton Thunder.
The ballpark has a pleasing brick façade that evokes nostalgia. When the Patriots first arrived in Somerset, their manager was Yankees great and former Cy Young Award winner Sparky Lyle. He won five of those six championships in his 15 years at the helm. In 2020, just after the swap with Trenton was announced, Somerset Co-Chairmen Jonathan and Josh Kalafer unveiled a statue to help cement their new relationship with the Yankees. It depicts their father, Chairman Emeritus Steve Kalafer, and Lyle, now referred to as Manager Emeritus of the club.
The Patriots name refers to the Middlebrook Encampment just east of Bridgewater, where General George Washington’s Continental Army stayed in the spring of 1777. The first official flag of the United States was unfurled there in June of that year.
The ballpark seats 6,100 but can accommodate 2,400 more. The Patriots averaged 5,181 in 2023, fifth in the 12-team Eastern League.
Dad and I made our stop in the team store. I came away with my first Marvel “Defenders of the Diamond” hat, a 2023 novelty.
The pre-game festivities ensued, and we got a visit from Patriots mascot Sparkee, a schnauzer with a handlebar mustache to match his namesake.
The Patriots would be facing the Bowie Baysox, who were the first stop on our road trip. Somerset had won the first half in the Eastern League Northeast Division and would go on to win the second half before losing to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in the playoffs. The Baysox were bubbling along just above .500 and would miss the postseason.
But the real story of this game was Nestor Cortes, a Yankees starter on a rehab assignment with the Patriots. Cortes had made his first Major League All-Star team in 2022, putting up a 12-4 record with a 2.44 ERA and 163 strikeouts in 158 1/3 innings. He had strained his left rotator cuff in June and was placed on the 60-day injured list. Cortes was making his second start for Somerset, having worked 2 1/3 innings five days earlier, allowing a run on four hits.
“Nasty Nestor” looked in command from the start, getting two strikeouts and a weak groundout to retire the side in the first. The left-hander had some pop on his fastball, but he worked his cutter and slider most effectively — and even threw in one of his trick fast-pitch deliveries for good measure.
The Baysox started right-hander Connor Gillispie, who we had seen pitch in relief in Bowie. Gillispie gave up a single but otherwise kept the Patriots quiet in the first.
Cortes got the first two outs in the second inning, then gave up a walk and a single before closing the door on another scoreless frame.
In the bottom of the third, Somerset right-fielder Jeisson Rosario led off with a double to center field. Shortstop Trey Sweeney, the #5 prospect in the Yankees organization, singled to center to open the scoring, taking second on the throw home. Tyler Hardman, the Yankees #18 prospect, singled Sweeney home, and first baseman Mickey Gasper doubled to center to make the score 3-0 Patriots.
Cortes came to the mound for his fourth and final inning. He struck out the first batter, allowed a single to left, then induced a double play to end the inning. His final line: no runs on two hits in four innings, with a walk and five strikeouts. That was good enough to get the 28-year-old Cuban off the injured list and back on the Yankees roster. But after just one game in the Bronx — a four-inning, eight-strikeout performance — Cortes shut it down for the 2023 season.
We had some good options for somewhat non-conventional ballpark food: pork rolls (a New Jersey favorite), Italian pork sandwiches, beef or chicken cheesesteaks, and mini empanadas.
But I walked away from the main concessions to get the very good BBQ Smoked Ribs with “signature slaw” and house-made barbecue chips from Oink and Moo BBQ, an award-winning New Jersey food truck on site for the game.
The Yankees Prospect Parade continued in the bottom of the fourth when designated hitter Jasson Dominguez — the #1 prospect in the organization and the #42 prospect in all of baseball — singled home a couple of runners. Somerset added a sacrifice fly to push the score to 6-0.
Meanwhile, Somerset pitching remained dominant, with a series of four relievers combining to give up just one hit over the final five innings.
I had reached out before the trip to Dave Marek, Somerset’s Sr. Vice President of Marketing. As we approached Somerset County, he contacted me and offered to have Dad and I participate in a between-innings chipping contest. That sounded perfect.
In the top of the fifth inning, we were led through the tunnel that connects to the field. As we waited, Dad leaned toward me and said he wasn’t feeling good — tired, a little dizzy. What neither of us realized at the time was that we had skipped lunch, and Dad was suffering from low blood sugar. In the summer humidity, it had taken its toll.
But he said he would go through with the contest, and soon we were on the field in front of an attentive Patriots dugout. I scuffed my first shot, then hit a couple of close ones as Dad put two past the pin. We got a nice round of applause and went back up the tunnel. I got Dad back to his seat, then went for an Italian ice, which revived him like magic.
In the bottom of the sixth, I walked down the left-field line just as Hardman whizzed a rocket over the left-field wall to make it 8-0 Somerset.
Tyler Hardman
The home-team party continued in the bottom of the eighth, when Hardman ripped his second home run in as many at-bats, this time to center. A fifth-round draft pick who hit .397 for the University of Oklahoma in 2021, Hardman hit just .237 in his 2023 season with the Patriots. But of his 67 total hits, 26 were home runs. On this night, his best of the season, Hardman finished 4-for-4 with 6 RBI, outhitting the entire Baysox squad combined.
The Patriots now led the game 10-0.
The best Bowie could muster in the top of the ninth was having one of their batters get hit by a baseball. It was that kind of night for the Baysox.
After the game, we were treated to back-to-back light shows in the sky. The first was a conventional fireworks display, and a good one. But as we walked out of the ballpark to our Jeep, we could see lightning in the clouds high above, flashing constantly like a broken light flickering and sparking in a motel hallway. There was no thunder and, for the time being, no rain — just silent bolts of electrical chaos.
