While opening day is Thursday night, the Thunder made their first appearance at Arm & Hammer Park Tuesday for media day (you can find my full story here). The event, unfortunately, did not feature top prospect Gary Sanchez - who will be behind the dish this year - because Sanchez had a preplanned late departure from Tampa. The Thunder's other big-name prospect, Mason Williams, was there, and shared this interesting tidbit about Carlos Beltran, who had an adjacent locker in Tampa:

Here is Williams taking a little BP. He makes nice contact towards the end.


As far as newsworthy info, the two biggest takeaways were that manager Tony Franklin revealed both the starting rotation and the top of the lineup. The rotation (in order) will be Bryan Mitchell (read about him here), Jeremy Bleich, Zach Nuding, Joel De la Cruz and Matt Tracy. Williams will lead off, with Rob Refsnyder in the two hole, Rob Segedin third and Sanchez cleaning up.

Here is a little bit of Franklin:




Also of note: the Thunder have sweet new BP jerseys with light blue sleeves. I am told that the game jerseys will be the same pinstripes as last year, but count me among those who think an change in this direction would be wise. Here is Rob Segedin sporting the new threads:

 

Trentonian Photo/GREGG SLABODA

I also wrote a little bit about Rob, who could be in for a bounce-back season after having surgery on both hips last year.

Our latest Trentonian addition, Ed Morlock, also put together a piece on new hitting coach Marcus Thames.