KANSAS CITY – Kan. The Kansas City T-Bones began the night with a pre-game ring ceremony on the field for the cast of the 2018 championship roster and the supporting T-Bones crew. Like the rings with which they were presented, the T-Bones offense came up gold twice with two home runs and gem of an effort by the pitching staff to shutout the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks 3-0 at T-Bones Stadium.

Opening night started out slow with Bradin Hagens for the Redhawks and Randall Delgado for the T-Bones keeping the game a close affair. Former teammates at AAA and for a short stint in the Big Leagues, both looked like potential staff aces on the mound. Delgado tossed five scoreless innings with four strikeouts while Hagens struck out seven in seven innings.

The first run came from the bat of Darnell Sweeney who hit the first home run of the season and who had the first hit off Hagens of the game for Kansas City in the bottom of the 4th inning. In the bottom of the 6th inning, Daniel Robertson hit another solo homer to left off Hagens to make it 2-0, Kansas City.

The T-Bones added an insurance run in the home half of the eighth on a poorly read fly ball that dropped between the second baseman TJ Bennett and right fielder Tim Colwell to make it 3-0, KC. The play allowed Mikey Reynolds to race home from second with two outs.

The winning pitcher for Kansas City was Randall Delgado (1-0) who threw five innings of three-hit ball while walking one. Bradin Hagens (0-1) was charged with the loss despite giving up just three hits in seven innings. He was charged with two earned runs and  four walks.

Kansas City starts off 1-0 on the season while Fargo-Moorhead starts the season 0-1. The two teams will play game two of their three-game series Saturday night at T-Bones Stadium. RHP Tommy Collier will start for KC while LHP Sebastian Kessay will go for Fargo.

Box Score

By Luke Schrock

Featured Image by John Ellis Kansas City T-Bones