The Thunder lost to Harrisburg, 3-2, in the process falling to second in the Eastern League East, behind the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. As it stands, it looks like those two clubs will battle for the division's top spot all summer long.

This wasn't Pat Venditte's night. He allowed the go-ahead two-run double to Josh Johnson in the seventh, but was OK in the eighth and ninth innings. Recent success notwithstanding, Venditte was visibly upset with the way he performed.

Before Johnson hit the double, Venditte was called for a balk for not stepping toward first on a pickoff throw. Steve Lombardozzi followed with an infield single, and Johnson drove both men in a few pitches later.

Venditte said he wasn't particularly unnerved by the call against him, nor did he let it hinder his concentration.

"There was still already one out in the inning, and I knew if I could make a good pitch, make a couple of good pitches, I could get a couple of quick outs and maybe get out of the inning. I got ahead there on (Johnson), 0-1 fastball away, threw the same pitch again and he put a good swing on it to left field. It's just one of those nights where things didn't go my way and I didn't execute."

Even with a few hiccups of late, Venditte has been gangbusters since May 5, when his ERA was a ghastly 6.61. Since then, he's lowered that mark to 3.20, and he credits the success to a cut fastball from the right side.

"That was an awful start to the season. Luckily, Phelpsie stuck with me and was working with me every day in the bullpen. He showed a cutter to me, which I've been throwing a ton from the right side. That's helped me immensely to go out there and get right-on-right hitters out. It's been a big confidence-booster for me. I'm just very fortunate he stuck with me and he keeps going to me."

- Craig Heyer, despite a career high-tying four walks, permitted just one run. It came on Tyler Moore's RBI triple in the first, an inning in which he walked nobody. He wasn't terribly pleased with his stuff or his outing afterward, but was thankful that he escaped relatively unscathed after six innings.

"I just didn't command the ball too well today. My change-up wasn't there. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. ... Allowing five or six hits, plus four walks is over 10 baserunners a game, so to be able to get out of it, that's a positive."

- DeAngelo Mack had two hits tonight, and he's hitting .323/.475/.548 over his last 10 games. He's got a double, two longballs, six RBIs and six walks in that time.

- Cody Johnson also had two hits, one a double just inside the left-field line, and the other a bullet off of starting pitcher Tanner Roark that drove in the Thunder's second run.

- Brad Suttle's RBI double brought home Ray Kruml with Trenton's first run.

- Jose Pirela flashed excellent range in the seventh inning after Venditte's balk. He corralled Lombardozzi's grounder to short and had the presence of mind to fire behind Jonathan Tucker at second. The throw was in plenty of time to nab Tucker, but second baseman Corban Joseph flubbed the tag.

- Not only is Kei Igawa back with the Thunder, he's back in the starting rotation too. He'll take the ball on Saturday in Binghamton.

Austin Romine was eligible to come off the disabled list today, but he did not. He may begin activities soon, but nothing too strenuous. Sounds like stretching would be the beginning of his road back. He went on the disabled list with a "mild" concussion last week after Travis Scott's hit on him toward the end of the Thunder's loss on June 2 against Altoona.

Melky Mesa has begun physical activities to rehab his lower-back issue. He was throwing a medicine ball with trainer Tim Lentych before the game. He last played on May 26.

Per the notes on the wall, Cory Arbiso is your starter on the 18th.

Cody Johnson was sent home today with flu-like symptoms.

TRENTON – On stuff alone, Craig Heyer doesn’t exactly jump out at you. He doesn’t have a mid-90s heater or a buckling breaking ball like a few of his more hyped rotation-mates, and his name certainly doesn’t come up in conversations about the system’s elite arms.

What he does have, however, after 6 1/3 innings of two-run baseball in the Thunder’s 5-2 win over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats yesterday, is a tie for the third-best ERA in the Yankees organization.

The win also pushed the Thunder into a tie with New Hampshire for both first place in the Eastern Division and the best record in the league. After a sloppy 10-12 April, both feats seemed well out of reach.

Heyer attributed the rapid ascension to an upbeat clubhouse, which in turn has produced a brand of baseball that is more free-flowing than in the first month, when the team sometimes seemed mechanical.

“It’s been awesome. Everyone’s playing loose, playing relaxed. It starts at the top, actually, with Tony (Franklin). He’s loose and relaxed as well, so it’s kind of neat going out there every game and being confident, too.”

The final run yesterday – which scored on a bases-loaded walk after Heyer was yanked – upped his ERA from 2.77 to 2.78, and nudged him into a third-place tie with D.J. Mitchell, a member of last year’s Thunder rotation.

Accomplishing what he has so far has taken willingness to pound the strike zone over and over again with a low-90s fastball that features cutting and sinking action, as well as an ineffable ability to command.

“He’s been pretty consistent with what he gives us,” Franklin said. “ … He’s not going to overwhelm you with a lot of fantastic curveballs or velocity or anything, but the guy’s consistent, and that’s major league pitching.”

Entering yesterday, Heyer had walked just 15 hitters over his previous 140 2/3 innings, a total that spans last season. By comparison, teammates Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances – who have each attracted considerable attention nationally – have issued 26 and 22 walks, respectively, this season alone.

Backing Heyer was a lively Thunder offense led by the resurgent Cody Johnson, who continued peppering line drives all over Waterfront Park. He scored three singles off of Blue Jays prospect Henderson Alvarez before coming up with his compulsory whiff of the afternoon.

His hits drove home two of the Thunder’s runs, and swatted the single that drove Alvarez from the game. Over his last 10 contests, Johnson, previously the definition of an all-or-nothing hitter, looks like a new man.

Since May 28, Johnson has hit a stunning .405/.419/.762 with three doubles, four home runs and 15 RBIs. He’s on a 10-game hitting streak, and was 8-for-14 in the series with New Hampshire. More amazingly, all of those eight knocks were singles.

The streak was spurred in part by Johnson lowering his hands in his stance, which has eliminated a pronounced hitch that plagued him over the first part of the year. Franklin thinks that, like the rest of his team, the designated hitter is carrying a renewed feeling of confidence onto the field.

“He makes an impact in our lineup now,” he said. “He’s a man to be reckoned with now, and I think the opposition knows that.”

NOTES: There’s no movement on the Austin Romine front. The catcher wasn’t in the lineup yesterday, and is not expected play today when the Thunder hit the road for four games against the Reading Phillies. … Catcher Ryan Baker got into his first game of the season last night, and immediately caught Darin Mastroianni, one of the league’s best base burglars, trying to take second.

TRENTON – After spring training this season, plenty of fans were clamoring for Dellin Betances and Manny Banuelos – two of the Yankees’ three “Killer B’s” – to earn spots on the major league roster. Who better to fill the two gaping holes in the rotation, they surmised, than two of the brightest prospects not only in New York’s system, but all of baseball?

With his outing last night – a microcosm of his season’s performance so far – Betances showed exactly why rushing your youngsters to the show can be a recipe for disaster. The towering right-hander walked five in 5 2/3 innings, and left his team with an early three-run deficit.

Still, the team’s theme over the last month or so has been perseverance, and last night’s effort was no exception. The Thunder escaped the hole Betances left them, and put together yet another comeback, a 4-3 win over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats punctuated by Cody Johnson’s walk-off single in the tenth inning in front of 6,519 fans at Waterfront Park.

The winning rally got its start in one of the least likely ways – a rare misplay from shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria, whose two spectacular plays in the second inning kept the Thunder from scoring.

Still, Ray Kruml’s grounder reached shortstop on a tricky bounce, and Hechavarria was handcuffed. Corban Joseph worked a walk next, and an out later the pair executed a perfect double steal.

“For some reason, I saw an in-between hop coming. Normally he makes that play and he didn’t tonight,” manager Tony Franklin said. “All the talk in the dugout during the course of the game was, every play he makes ‘This guy’s a major league defender right now, there’s no question about it.’”

New Hampshire then chose to intentionally pass Brad Suttle to load the bases for Johnson, who to that point had a single and three strikeouts in four trips. He faced southpaw Frank Gailey this time, and with two strikes flicked his wrists at a slider and lined it over the head of right fielder Moises Sierra, easily plating Kruml with the winning score.

“I was just trying to take the easiest swing possible to give myself the best chance I had to put it in play,” Johnson said, who noted that New Hampshire had made some changes in the way the pitched him since Friday’s game. “Overall, they changed speeds really well on me tonight and made good pitches and didn’t really leave anything over the play for me to hit.”

That it was a single on a slider is important, because earlier in the year Johnson’s at-bats seemed to end in either a home run or a strikeout, and any breaking pitch usually meant a swing and a miss from the hulking left-hander.

Johnson now has a nine-game hitting streak, and his last six hits have been singles.

With the exception of his 10-punchout performance in Reading, Betances’ starts this season have always carried with them a hint of danger. Counting last night, he’s walked a quartet or more in four of his nine starts this season. In all, he’s issued 17 free passes in 39 2/3 innings -- or about a walk every two innings.

“He started the ballgame with a walk, and that’s not good,” Franklin said. “Overall, his command of the strike zone and command of his pitches, it wasn’t good today.”

With the exception of his truncated 2010, command has never been one of Betances’ hallmarks. Before he returned from elbow surgery last season, he’d handed out 113 bases on balls in 214 1/3 innings. He cut his rates dramatically last season, but seems to have reverted to form to this point.

In the fourth, the Thunder mounted the first half of the evening’s comeback.

With runners at first and second and two out, Jose Pirela’s triple into the right-field corner cut the score to 3-2. DeAngelo Mack’s double a few pitches later plated Pirela and gave Trenton a clean slate.