TRENTON — In 23 games with the Fisher Cats this season, the Thunder have held slugger Eric Thames hitless just five times.

Most recently, Adam Warren was the man responsible for keeping Thames in the yard and off the basepaths. It came in a 2-1 victory over the Fisher Cats that clinched the Thunder’s spot in the Eastern League playoffs and pushed their lead in the Eastern Division to 2 1/2 games.

It also, in my mind, cemented Warren as the man who should take the ball against New Hampshire when the division series begins on Sept. 8.

As Randy Boone hung zeroes on the Thunder, Warren seemed to kick it into another gear. He worked quickly and, after allowing a run on a wild pitch in the first, went to work devouring the meat of New Hampshire’s order.

Combined, the Fisher Cats’ 2 through 8 hitters were 0-for-16 against Warren with six strikeouts, two of which came against Thames.

Tuesday night’s outing, which fell on Warren’s 23rd birthday, also served as an encore to the performance he turned in seven days prior.

He fanned a Thunder record-setting 15 Baysox that night, prompting manager Tony Franklin to heap praise upon the right-hander.

That’s pretty good stuff. That’s major league-type stuff, front-line, major league, first-division, pennant contending team-type stuff,” Franklin said.

Lately, Warren’s arm has been backing up his skipper’s words. Over his last two starts, his numbers look like this: 13 innings, five hits, one run (earned), two walks and an incredible 21 strikeouts.

When I spoke with him during the All-Star break, after he’d been promoted to Trenton, here’s how he described his attitude on the mound:

“I basically just try to go after hitters and use a bulldog mentality. I try to pound the zone low in the zone to get ground balls and try to work as fast as I can.”

That bulldog mentality, as he describes it, will serve him well against a team that has knocked the Thunder around all season long. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s done it before.

Warren was given the starting assignment in the opening game of the Staten Island Yankees’ opening-round set. That night he limited the Lowell Spinners to two runs over 4 2/3 innings, and struck out eight.

Although he didn’t pick up the win, Warren’s effort kept the SI Yanks in the game long enough to mount a comeback victory.

That’s exactly what he’ll need to do against the Fisher Cats in a few weeks.

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In a few days, when the major league roster limit expands to 40, there could be more changes in store for the Thunder, specifically when it comes to the bullpen.

Scranton relievers Jonathan Albaladejo and Romulo Sanchez are likely to join the Yankees, which means two arms would have to leave the Thunder’s pen.

George Kontos, who is working his way back from Tommy John surgery, is one obvious candidate. Josh Schmidt, who has been excellent over the majority of the last two seasons with Trenton, is the other.

If that happens, expect Pat Venditte and Jonathan Ortiz to make their way north.

Everybody familiar with the Yankees system has heard of Venditte, the switch pitcher who has been knocking on Double-A’s door all year. He’s allowed just 44 hits and has struck out 81 over 69 innings with High-A Tampa, and seems more than ready for a promotion.

With a 6-1 record, 2.49 ERA and 56 punchouts in 50 2/3 innings, Ortiz has nearly matched Venditte’s gaudy numbers, and would be a fitting addition to the back end of the Thunder’s bullpen.

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Brandon Laird, who racked up 23 home runs and 90 RBIs before earning call to Triple-A, earned the nod at third base on the Eastern League’s postseason All-Star squad.

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For the second straight season, Schmidt will pitch in the Venezuelan Winter League.

As a starter with the Aguilas de Zulia last year, the right-hander was 2-5 with a 3.58 ERA, including a complete-game shutout.

TRENTON — In typical Yankees fashion, the Thunder’s clinch of a spot in the Eastern League playoffs last night was not met with a dogpile on the mound or champagne in a cellophane-draped locker room.

In fact, when approached about it afterward, most of the players were unaware it had finally happened.

Indeed, the Thunder’s 2-1 win over the New Hampshire Fisher Cats last night, coupled with a Binghamton loss against lowly New Britain, punched their card in next month’s division series, which more than likely will come against New Hampshire.

As a bonus, the victory also bumped the Thunder’s lead in the division to 2 ½ games, just a game down of where they started the series.

“No question about it, this was a good win for us,” skipper Tony Franklin said. “I’m pretty happy with the way we played tonight, after last night. That was a heck of an effort for us tonight.”

Just as they did in the eighth inning on Tuesday, the top of Trenton’s lineup put together a quick rally against New Hampshire. This time it came in the seventh against Randy Boone, who had looked impenetrable for the prior six innings.

With one out, Austin Krum – who entered last night 2 for his last 34, slapped a Boone offering into center field. Dan Brewer then slipped a knock the right side that Adam Loewen juggled, allowing runners to move to second and third.

“I was looking for something out there,” Brewer said. “I didn’t know if it was off (the plate) or not, but it was close enough where I had to swing. I was just trying to put the ball in play and make something happen.”

Austin Romine’s nubber to shallow shortstop on the next pitch pushed across Krum and left the go-ahead run at second for Corban Joseph, who, like Krum, was in a deep funk.

Joseph’s worked Boone to a 3-0 count, a situation in which, over the last few weeks, he’d normally be asked to take. Franklin played a hunch, however, and let Joseph hack away, expecting he’d see a fastball he could push to the right.

“With the way I’d been playing now, it’s exciting, because (it means) Skip has a lot of confidence,” Joseph said. “He saw kind of what I saw, and I put together a game plan. Normally that’s not necessarily the greatest 3-0 hack. When you get the green light you really want to crush the ball.”

Even without the greatest contact in the world, Joseph’s single gave the Thunder the edge they’d need to put this one in the win column, something they hadn’t done against New Hampshire since July 29. That win, coincidentally, also was at Boone’s expense.

It also backed up a second straight stellar outing from Adam Warren, who over the past two starts has looked more and more like a good choice to take the ball in Game 1 of the playoffs.

The right-hander, pitching on his 23rd birthday and with a week’s rest in his back pocket, looked every bit as good as he did during his last start, when he struck out 15 Baysox and broke a 16-year-old team record in the process.

Using a fastball that sat between 90 and 94 miles per hour and a loopy curve, Warren finished the evening with one run on three hits and a walk with a half dozen strikeouts. He threw 99 pitches during his outing, 62 of which were strikes.

“Getting beat the first few games against New Hampshire, we all wanted to come out and not get swept,” Warren said. “We were just looking to try to get one on them. Our whole team played well tonight, and we came out with a win.”

NOTES: The Thunder released their 2011 schedule yesterday, and the biggest difference was the amount of games they’ll play against Reading. They’ll play the R-Phils 18 times next year, including a stretch of eight straight sandwiched around the All-Star break. … John Van Benschoten arrived yesterday, complete with a name tag on his locker dubbing him “King Schoten.”