Somerset Patriots Series Recap Vs Chesapeake BaySox 5/19 - 5/24

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The Somerset Patriots did not exactly ease into their week in Bowie.

They opened the series against Chesapeake with two losses, including one walk-off and one

marathon game that felt like it had three different endings. But by Sunday afternoon, the tone

had flipped completely. Somerset won the final four games of the set, claimed its first road

series win of the season, and climbed back over .500 for the first time since April 3.

It was a week that showed both sides of this roster: the power-heavy offense that can change a game in one inning, and the pitching staff that, when synced up, can bury opposing lineups for days at a time.

A Rough Start to the Series

The Patriots dropped Tuesday’s opener, 6-5, despite three home runs from Tyler Hardman,

Jace Avina, and DJ Gladney. It was another reminder that Somerset’s power is real but not

always enough on its own. The Patriots had a late lead before Chesapeake scored three in the ninth to steal the opener.

Wednesday was even messier. Somerset fell 12-8 in the longest nine-inning game in franchise history, a 3-hour, 43-minute grind that included another Tyler Hardman homer, a big Coby Morales first-inning double, and plenty of offense that still could not cover for the pitching. Hardman’s blast gave him homers in three straight games and pushed his RBI total to 38, the most ever by a Patriot through the first 41 games of a season.

At that point, Somerset had enough loud swings to make the week interesting, but not enough clean innings to take control of it.

Garrett Martin Keeps Raking

The momentum started to shift Thursday night.

Garrett Martin delivered the swing of the game in Somerset’s 2-1 win, launching a two-run

homer in the seventh inning for his Eastern League-leading 14th home run of the season. That swing gave the Patriots a one-run win and started the four-game push that ultimately defined the week.

Martin was not done. He doubled in runs Friday, drove in another Saturday, then went deep

again Sunday with his 15th homer of the season. By the end of the series, Martin’s 15 home

runs led the Eastern League, ranked second in Double-A, and gave him the most homers ever

by a Somerset Patriot through the first 45 games of a season.

That is not just a hot stretch anymore. That is a player forcing the conversation.

Avina’s On-Base Heater Rolls On

Jace Avina did not need to homer every night to stay at the center of the offense.

He reached base in every game of the series and pushed his on-base streak to 23 games by

Sunday. During that run, Avina was slashing .327/.405/.663 with eight home runs, 22 RBI and

17 extra-base hits, raising his OPS from .629 to .889.

The biggest thing with Avina is that the production no longer feels streaky in the cheap sense. He is controlling at-bats better, getting to impact contact and staying dangerous even when pitchers avoid the obvious damage spots.

Somerset already had Martin and Hardman doing serious damage. Avina’s rise gives the lineup another bat that can stretch a pitching staff across an entire series.

Pitching Staff Slams the Door

The offense will get the headline treatment because Somerset is still hitting home runs at a

ridiculous pace, but the series turned because of the arms.

After allowing 18 runs over the first two games, Somerset gave up just five total runs over the final four. The staff struck out 44 batters and walked only 13 during that stretch, including a 4-0 shutout Saturday and six scoreless innings from Chase Chaney in Sunday’s finale.

Kyle Carr was excellent Saturday, matching a season high with eight strikeouts over 5.1

scoreless innings. He has now worked at least five innings in all four May starts and owns a

1.61 ERA this month.

Chaney followed Sunday with six shutout innings of his own, allowing just three hits and one

walk. It was his third quality start of the season, tied for the most in the Eastern League.

That is how a series flips. Not with one big swing, but with four straight nights of the opponent running out of answers.

The Power Pace Is Still Absurd

Even in a week that included two early losses, Somerset’s season-long power story kept getting louder.

The Patriots homered in 10 of their last 11 games by the end of Sunday and had 77 home runs through 45 games, the most in Double-A and third-most in Minor League Baseball. Their 77 homers through 45 games are also a Double-A record in the Research Tool Era, which dates back to 2005.

Somerset also extended its extra-base-hit streak to all 45 games this season. The club has not gone a game without an extra-base hit yet, which feels almost fake until you watch the lineup stack doubles and homers from the top through the middle.

This is not a normal Double-A offense. It is volatile, sure. But it is also dangerous in a way that changes how every game feels.

Tyler Hardman Finally Gets the Call

The best storyline of the week came after Tyler Hardman had already done enough damage in Bowie.

Hardman homered Tuesday, homered Wednesday, and homered Friday again, giving him four

homers over a five-game stretch and 10 home runs in May, which led all of Minor League

Baseball at the time.

Then came the move that felt overdue: the Yankees promoted Hardman from Double-A

Somerset to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on May 23. MLB and MiLB transaction pages both listed the assignment to the RailRiders, and Scranton’s own game notes said Hardman arrived after hitting .300 with 13 home runs in 42 games for Somerset.

He wasted no time making the jump count. Hardman doubled and drove in a run in his Triple-A debut as Scranton’s designated hitter, a fitting first impression for a player who had spent the first seven weeks of the season hammering his way out of Double-A.

For Somerset, losing Hardman takes a real bat out of the middle of the order. For Hardman, it is the kind of call he earned the hard way, through production, versatility, and a May power binge that became impossible to ignore.

Somerset left Bowie with a series win, a four-game winning streak, and one of its

longest-tenured bats finally headed one step closer to the Bronx. That is a pretty strong week, even by this lineup’s standards.

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