On the night that Aaron Judge tied Yankees history, their Double-A affiliate made history: the Somerset Patriots defeated the Erie SeaWolves 15-0 to win the deciding Game 3 of the Eastern League Championship Series…and they did it with a combined no-hitter!
On the mound, Randy Vasquez, the No. 14 prospect in the organization per MLB.com, threw eight near-perfect innings, a one-out walk in the seventh inning his only blemish. Vazquez retired 19 in a row to that point, then got five more outs to finish his night, punctuated by his eighth and final strikeout.
He was staked to all the runs he would need (and then some) in the first inning, as Somerset plated nine in the frame, which included Jasson Dominguez’s three-run homer to cap the scoring. The Patriots then added five in the third, including a two-run Dominguez dinger that gave him home runs from both sides of the plate in the span of three innings, as well as homers from Andres Chaparro and Jeisson Rosario.
The final Somerset run came on a bases-loaded walk issued to Dominguez in the fourth – giving the Martian six RBI – and by the ninth, it was all over but the shouting…which commenced when Carson Coleman struck out Danny Serretti swinging to end the season as champions.
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And so, a Somerset team that finished the season with four of the Yankees’ Top 6 prospects and nine of the Top 14 on the roster brings home an Eastern League Championship in just the franchise’s second season as an affiliate, and it is the Yankees’ second EL crown in three years, as Trenton won it in 2019 in their final season as an affiliate.
Somerset finished the regular season with the best record in Double-A at 83-53, and they went 4-1 in the postseason, sweeping Portland in the Division Series then dropping Game 1 vs. Erie before winning two in a row at TD Bank Ballpark.
Congratulations to the Somerset Patriots!
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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