PORTLAND, Me. – The Thunder’s win streak came to a close yesterday, but not before they took one of two from the Portland Sea Dogs in a double-header at Hadlock Field.

Cory Arbiso allowed seven runs in 1 2/3 innings in the nightcap, which all but sealed a 7-5 loss for Trenton. Pat Venditte held the Dogs scoreless for the final 4 1/3, but the damage was long done.

With the outing, the switch-pitching Venditte ran his scoreless string to 19 innings in a row.

Jose Gil led the way for the offense, carding a 2-for-3 effort with a double and two RBIs.

Outfielder Deangelo Mack went 0-for-3 in his Double-A debut, batting out of the eighth spot in the lineup. Mack was summoned from Tampa yesterday to replace Melky Mesa, who went on the shelf today with a stiff back. The injury is not considered serious.

Trenton’s offense led the comeback charge in the early game, using a season-high 15 hits to come back and win 8-7 after starter Kei Igawa surrendered three first-inning runs.

Corban Joseph stroked two doubles and drove in two runs, and Cody Johnson socked his seventh longball of the season in an eight-run stretch over the third, fourth and fifth innings.

The Thunder got four runs in the fifth, all with two outs, on consecutive knocks from Yadil Mujica, Ray Kruml, Joseph, and a final RBI rip from Austin Romine.

The series continues this afternoon when Shaeffer Hall takes the hill against Portland’s Michael Lee.

Monday LHP Manny Banuelos (0-0, 0.00) vs. RHP Michael Lee (0-0, 0.00)
Tuesday LHP Steve Garrison (0-0, 0.00) vs. RHP Alex Wilson (1-0, 5.40)
Wednesday LHP Shaeffer Hall (0-0, 7.20) vs. RHP Brock Huntzinger (0-1, 14.73)

Today, in Baseball America's latest round of minor league transactions, a number of notable names were optioned to the Eastern League. And although the assignments aren't final, they allow an approximate glimpse at some of the prospects that the Thunder should face this season.

Here's what BA reported this afternoon:

Baltimore Orioles
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Brandon Erbe, RHP Chorye Spoone, LHP Troy Patton, LHP Pedro Viola, 1B Joe Mahoney

Optioned to Double-A: RHP Luis Lebron, SS Pedro Florimon

Boston Red Sox
Signed: C Matt Spring
Released: RHP Doug Wogee
Optioned to Double-A: RHP Stolmy Pimentel, 2B Oscar Tejeda

Cleveland Indians
Signed: 1B Nick Johnson
Released: 1B Chris Kersten
Voluntarily retired: 1B Andrew Kinney
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Corey Kluber, RHP Zach McAllister, RHP Hector Rondon, 3B Jared Goedert, OF Nick Weglarz
Optioned to Double-A: LHP Kelvin de la Cruz, LHP Nick Hagadone

Detroit Tigers
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Lester Oliveros, RHP Jose Ortega, LHP Duane Below, LHP Andy Oliver, 3B Audy Ciriaco, SS Cale Iorg, OF Ryan Strieby
Optioned to Double-A: RHP Jacob Turner

Minnesota Twins
Signed: RHP Gerardo Ramirez, RHP Gonzalo Sanudo, LHP Andrew Albers (Quebec (Can-Am))
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP David Bromberg, RHP Eric Hacker, RHP Anthony Swarzak, OF Rene Tosoni
Optioned to Double-A: RHP Deolis Guerra, 1B Chris Parmelee, OF Joe Benson

New York Mets
Signed: RHP Manny Alvarez*
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Manny Alvarez, RHP Josh Stinson, 3B Zach Lutz, SS Ruben Tejada, OF Fernando Martinez
Optioned to Double-A: 2B Jordany Valdespin
Optioned to high Class A: RHP Armando Rodriguez

Philadelphia Phillies
Released: C Ryan Gugel, 1B Robb Quinlan
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Drew Naylor
Optioned to Double-A: RHP Justin De Fratus, RHP J.C. Ramirez, 1B Matt Rizzotti, 2B Harold Garcia, SS Carlos Rivero
Optioned to high Class A: 2B Cesar Hernandez

Pittsburgh Pirates
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Bryan Morris, LHP Daniel Moskos, LHP Tony Watson, OF Gorkys Hernandez, OF Alex Presley
Optioned to Double-A: RHP Ramon Aguero, LHP Jeff Locke, LHP Aaron Thompson
Optioned to high Class A: RHP Kyle McPherson

San Francisco Giants
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Henry Sosa, LHP Alex Hinshaw, LHP Clayton Tanner, 3B Conor Gillaspie, OF Thomas Neal
Optioned to Double-A: SS Ehire Adrianza, OF Francisco Peguero
Optioned to high Class A: RHP Jose Casilla

Washington Nationals
Signed: RHP Garrett Mock*, LHP Atahualpa Severino*, C Lou Santangelo
Released: RHP Cla Meredith
Optioned to Triple-A: RHP Adam Carr, RHP Garrett Mock, LHP Atahualpa Severino
Optioned to low Class A: OF Bryce Harper

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Tonight: RHP Hector Noesi (0-0, 7.50) vs. TBD
Tomorrow: RHP David Phelps (3-0, 2.40) vs. RHP Robert Coello (4-1, 3.21)
Thursday: RHP Cory Arbiso (0-0, 2.00) vs. RHP Ryne Miller (2-3, 4.53)

How they stand: The Thunder are 29-21, two games back of first-place New Hampshire and 2.5 games better than the third-place Sea Dogs. If they were in the EL West, the Thunder would be in second place, for what it's worth.

Who's hot: Surprise, surprise, Brandon Laird and Austin Romine are on fire. Not only is Romine riding a 12-game hitting streak, but half of those games have been multi-hit efforts. Since the streak started on May 15, Romine has notched a pair of three-hit contests. One of those games came against Portland. As for Laird, well, I detailed his month of May earlier on the blog, but to reiterate, he beasted it. He hit .339/.374/.965 with six home runs and 33 RBIs.

Who to look for: Against Portland this season, Romine and Laird are respectively hitting .361 and .349. Four of Laird's team-leading 10 bombs and 12 of his 50 RBIs have come against the Sea Dogs. Justin Christian is 6-for-14 against Portland pitching. Luis Nunez has also connected on two longballs against Portland.

Who to watch out for: Jose Iglesias and Yamaico Navarro have done the bulk of the Sea Dogs' damage against the Thunder, hitting .308 and .300, respectively. Good news for the Thunder pitchers: Five of the 11 home runs the Sea Dogs have hit against them have come from Lars (Lahhhs) Anderson and Mike Cameron, neither of whom are still with the team. Ryan Kalish has driven in five runs and drawn 10 walks against Trenton.

Note: Mike Ashmore will be covering the opening two games of this set for The Trentonian while I am on vacation.

PITCHING MATCHUPS

RHP Casey Kelly (0-3, 3.20) vs. RHP D.J. Mitchell (4-2, 4.95)
RHP Stephen Fife (2-1, 3.22) vs. RHP Hector Noesi (0-0, 0.00)
TBA vs. LHP Wilkin De La Rosa (1-2, 4.95)*
TBA vs. RHP David Phelps (3-0, 1.73)*
* One of these games will probably be LHP Felix Doubront (4-0, 2.51)
EDIT, 6:39 p.m: Doubront has been promoted, Jeremy Kehrt added to Portland

Look out for: Dan Brewer and Austin Romine, who each have RBI doubles off of Casey Kelly this season. Austin Krum also has a single. This seems to be the extent of the damage the Thunder have done against Kelly.

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Thursday: RHP Eammon Portice (2‐0, 2.08) vs. RHP Lance Pendleton (1‐2, 6.23)
Friday: RHP Casey Kelly (0‐0, 0.00) vs. RHP DJ Mitchell (1‐1, 4.15)
Saturday: RHP Stephen Fife (0‐1, 4.00) vs. RHP Ryan Pope (0‐1, 4.20)
Sunday: LHP Felix Doubront (2‐0, 3.21) vs. LHP Jeremy Bleich (1‐1, 2.04)

WHO'S HOT: THUNDER

Let's see, who could it be? Oh, that's right, David Adams. With a 5-for-11 series against New Hampshire (including a double, a home run and four walks), Adams has raised his season line to .388/.455/1.087, good for 4th, 5th and 5th in the Eastern League. ... D.J. Mitchell also pitched very well his last start, one-hitting the Sea Dogs over five innings. ... Austin Romine also seems to be heating up. He was 6-for-14 with three RBIs in the last series.

WHO'S HOT: SEA DOGS

Eammon Portice and Felix Doubront each have 2-0 records. Portice is a reliever making his first start tonight. ... Lars Anderson, a Double-A returnee, is hitting .295/.360/.951 with three home runs and 10 RBIs. ... Ryan Kalish also has three home runs, and Luis Exposito also has 10 RBIs. ... Ray Chang has a team-leading five doubles.

(PR) The Thunder split their afternoon doubleheader with the Sea Dogs on Sunday, winning the first game 3-1, and losing the second game 2-1. After the day, the Thunder are now 7-3 on the season.

Trenton got on the board first in game one, as Austin Krum led off the game with a double down the leftfield line. The next batter, David Adams, hit a double into the left-center field gap, and that allowed Austin Krum to cross home plate with the first run of the game. In the fourth inning, the Thunder had the bases loaded with one out for Luis Nunez, and he knocked a base hit into rightfield to bring in Brandon Laird, making it 2-0 Thunder.

Laird would get his chance to produce a run in the top of the fifth, and he did just that. After Austin Krum walked and stole second base, Laird came up and lined a ground ball through the hole and into leftfield to bring in Krum.

DJ Mitchell was terrific in his second start of the season. He earned the victory after giving up just one hit through five innings and struck out two. Grant Duff finished the game and recorded his third save of the year.

In game two, it was Portland that jumped out to an early lead when Luis Exposito singled in Ryan Kalish. Then, Lars Anderson doubled off the ‘Maine Monster’, which brought in Exposito.

In the fourth inning, Brandon Laird hit his first home run of the year; a solo shot off Portland reliever Eammon Portice, and that cut the Sea Dog lead to 2-1. However, Portice settled down and gave up just one more hit, and Jason Rice came on to close and preserve the 2-1 victory for Portland.

The Thunder travel to New Hampshire on Monday to start a three game series with the Fisher Cats. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35PM.

Here's the team's press release: The game between the Thunder and the Sea Dogs scheduled for this evening at Hadlock Field has been postponed due to rain. The game has been rescheduled for May 22nd, as part of a double-header.

The Thunder and Sea Dogs continue their series tomorrow from Hadlock Field. First pitch is scheduled for 1:00

On the strength of Damon Sublett's longball, the Thunder topped the Portland Sea Dogs last night, 4-2, in 11 innings. Tomorrow they face top Red Sox prospect Casey Kelly. Here's a link to a story done by the Portland Press-Herald's Sea Dogs beat writer, Kevin Thomas.

Kelly, the son of former MLB infielder Pat Kelly, is concentrating on being a pitcher after spending last season working from the mound and as a shortstop. He's on a pitch count, and he will be when he comes to Trenton on April 22. That game will be covered by Mike Ashmore.

Also, here's a link to Baseball America's first Hot Sheet of the season. The list features former Eastern Leaguers Carlos Santana (Akron) and Brad Mills (New Hampshire), future Eastern Leaguers Travis D'Arnaud (New Hampshire) and Jacob Turner (Erie), and current Eastern Leaguer Luis Perez (New Hampshire).

Dates: April 15-18
Where: Hadlock Field

SCHEDULED STARTERS:

Thursday: Jeremy Bleich (1-0, 0.00) vs. Kyle Weiland (0-1, 7.20) 6:00 p.m.
Friday: David Phelps (1-0, 1.59) vs. Stephen Fife (0-0, 3.60) 6:00 p.m.
Saturday: D.J. Mitchell (0-1, 9.82) vs. Casey Kelly ( 0-0, 0.00) 1:00 p.m.
Sunday: Lance Pendleton (1-1, 7.71) vs. Felix Doubront (1-0, 2.00) 1:00 p.m.

WHO'S HOT:

Thunder: Bleich and Phelps each looked excellent in their first starts. The duo combined for 12 innings, 5 hits, 1 earned run and 12 strikeouts. Still, it's become pretty clear that Erie is a little bit of a pushover. The SeaWolves are 0-7 and have scored just 10 runs. Bleich and Phelps will be tested a little bit more by Portland, which has hit a league-leading eight home runs over a 4-3 start. ... David Adams has hit safely in every game and is hitting .481.

Sea Dogs: Top prospects Che-Husan Lin, Jose Iglesias and Luis Exposito are each hitting .300 or better; Lin and Exposito have gone deep. ... Lefty Felix Doubront, who faced the Thunder three times last year, has eight strikeouts in nine innings. ... Lin has three stolen bases in as many chances. ... Casey Kelly threw 50 pitches in two innings during his Double-A debut on April 12. He gave up six runs in 2 2/3 innings but got a no-decision.

Notes: David Phelps and Stephen Fife, Friday's starters, faced each other on May 30 last year. Greenville won, 3-1, but neither pitcher figured in the decision. ... Dan Brewer and David Adams faced Fife in that game, going a combined 1-for-7. Brewer had the hit, a single. ... Jeremy Bleich has faced Portland once in his career. He faced Doubront on July 16,

Riding a smart play from Reid Gorecki, a bomb from Damon Sublett and a timely hit from Austin Krum, the Thunder came back and topped the Akron Aeros yesterday, 4-3. The win puts Trenton at a neat 5-2 heading to Portland, instead of 4-3.

Grant Duff appeared in his fifth game of the season and picked up his second save. This feature talks about just how at ease Duff feels as a reliever compared to his starting days, when he says he felt uncomfortable.

The Thunder take on Kyle Weiland and the Sea Dogs tonight at Hadlock Field before getting the meat of Portland's rotation (Casey Kelly, Stephen Fife and Felix Doubront for the rest of the series)

In the tradition of, well, just about every baseball writer in America, it's time to make a few predictions. Trying to forecast the outcome of a minor league team is much harder than doing so for a major league team, I believe, because there is so much inherent fluidity.

For instance, there will be two changes to the roster before tonight's game. Those will be the first many, many transactions this year. Players will go up, down, hit the disabled list or leave the organization entirely.

That said, here are the Minor Matters predictions for your 2010 Thunder:

BATTING LEADERS
HR: Brandon Laird (15)
RBIs: Austin Romine (78)
AVG: Damon Sublett (.305)
BB: Dan Brewer (75)
SB: Austin Krum (20)
PITCHING LEADERS
W: D.J. Mitchell (12)
ERA: Christian Garcia (2.11)
SO: Garcia (160)
SV: Pat Venditte (15)
IP: Garcia (142)

-- Josh Schmidt will be out of Trenton by the end of April. He will be replaced by Venditte.

-- Ryan Pope will continue last season's momentum and will earn a promotion to Scranton by June. He will be replaced by Andrew Brackman.

-- Garcia will stay healthy all season and will earn a September call-up to the Bronx.

-- There will be 10 games postponed by rain. One will feature a two-hour delay.

-- The largest crowd of the year will be for Jesus Montero bobblehead night.

-- A guess at tonight's lineup:

CF - Austin Krum
RF - Dan Brewer
C - Austin Romine
3B- Brandon Laird
2B - David Adams
LF - Damon Sublett
1B - Kevin Smith
DH - Edwar Gonzalez
SS - Luis Nunez

-- Lastly, the Thunder will go 82-60 and finish the second in the division to Portland, which will win 90 games.

Just got off the phone with the Yankees Player Development Complex in Tampa, and was told that they probably won't be ready to release the final roster until Thursday. Of course, Media Day is tomorrow, so we should probably have a pretty darn good idea of what that roster is going to look like based on which players are in attendance.

Still, some EL clubs have released their rosters, and there are some pretty darn nice names to anticipate seeing this season.

We'll start with Erie, which plays Trenton on Opening Day, April 8.

The Seawolves announced their rotation will be:
LHP Jon Kibler

RHP L.J. Gagnier
LHP Duane Below
RHP Thad Weber
LHP Andy Oliver

Three lefties in one rotation is pretty rare, and pretty nasty.

As for position players, Erie features returnee Cale Iorg, outfielders Deik Scram and Wilkin Ramirez. Amazingly, 17 of the SeaWolves' 24 players spent time in Double-A last season.

PORTLAND: The Sea Dogs' roster is stocked, period. Confirmed players include super-prospects Casey Kelly, Jose Iglesias, Lars Anderson, Luis Exposito and Ryan Kalish. For those counting, that's one pitcher, two infielders, a catcher and an outfielder. So, yeah, Portland manager Arnie Beyeler has a few names to play with.

Felix Doubront, Ryne Miller, Stephen Fife and Kyle Weiland join Kelly in the starting rotation.

Che-Hsuan Lin, the 2008 Futures Game MVP, will also roam with Kalish in the Sea Dogs outfield.

READING: With the R-Phils now in the Thunder's division (the EL East), there should be some concern over how flush with talent they are. Their roster includes two of the three players acquired in the Cliff Lee trade -Phillippe Aumont and Tyson Gillies - outfield stud Domonic Brown, as well as 20-year-old shortstop Freddy Galvis.

Yohan Flande (and his wonderfully childish hair), Drew Naylor, Mike Cisco and Vance Worley finish the rotation.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: The biggest surprise, to me at least, is that Kyle Drabek is back in Double-A. This is especially shocking when you consider he made it to Triple-A last season with the Phillies. Maybe they just want to keep him away from Las Vegas.

Robert Bell, Zach Stewart (the Jays' top prospect before the Halladay trade), Luis Perez and Marty McLeary join Drabek in the starting five.

Also joining the Fisher Cats are slugging first baseman David Cooper, center fielder Darin Mastroianni, second baseman Brad Emaus and pitcher-turned-outfielder Adam Loewen. For what it's worth, I think Loewen's story is just as interesting as Pat Venditte's.

RICHMOND: The team formerly known as the Defenders boasts a cadre of position players, especially on the infield, in its inaugural season. Shortstop Brandon Crawford, second baseman Nick Noonan and third baseman Conor Gillaspie - their ninth, eleventh and seventeenth best prospects, according to Baseball America - will ply their trade with the Flying Squirrels (I love that name) in 2010.

Their outfield is even better, with Thomas Neal (No. 4 according to BA), Roger Kieschnick (No. 7) and Darren Ford (No. 13, and a Vineland native) slated to start.

Even though they don't have nearly the pitching of a year ago, the Flying Squirrels could make some noise in 2010.

Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't report that Richmond has Tony Pena Jr, son of the Yankees bench coach, on its roster.

HARRISBURG: Let's see, who are some big names you might like to see with the Senators this season. Well, there's Drew Storen, the closer and son of former XM host Mark Patrick. There's also Danny Espinosa, a slick fielding shortstop, as well as slugging first baseman Chris Marrero.

Oh, yeah, Stephen Strasburg, he's probably worth seeing. He'll make his first home start on April 16 against New Britain. His first overall start is April 11 at Blair County Ballpark in Altoona. Those might be your best chances to see him if you're a Thunder fan. I can't imagine he'll still be in Double-A when the Senators come calling on July 1.

ALTOONA: Although the final roster doesn't appear to be released yet, Jim Lane reports that prospects Tim Alderson and Gorkys Hernandez will start with the Curve. He also adds that Tony Sanchez, expected to start in Double-A, will begin with High-A West Virginia. Disappointing for sure, but don't be surprised to see him on June 15, when Altoona come to Waterfront Park for a three-game set.