September 5

Wednesday night in Baseballtown as the Reading Phillies hosted the Trenton Thunder in game #1 of the Eastern League Divisional Series. The R-Phils took it 4-2 for the franchise's first home playoff win since 2001. That year the club beat Erie in the Division Series and was headed to the Finals against New Britain, the events of "9-11" caused the series to be canceled and co-champions were declared. The next playoff appearance did not come until 2009 when the Akron Aeros swept the R-Phils in the first round, in 2011 the boys split the first two games in New Hampshire before losing two straight at home. On this night the Thunder took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning, in the R-Phils half of the fifth Jake Fox homered to get the club on the board. Tug Hulett followed with a base hit and eventually scored on a Jiwan James groundout to even the score at 2-2. In the seventh inning Tommy Joseph and Leandro Castro went yard back-to-back to give the club the lead for good. Austin Hyatt started and worked into the seventh inning, Tyler Knigge was the winning pitcher as Justin Friend saved it. With the win the R-Phils lead the series 1-0, game #2 is in Baseballtown on Thursday with the remainder of the best-of-five set in Trenton over the weekend. Take care, thanks for reading.