The few glimmers of sunshine that peaked through the clouds above Fifth Third Field resembled some bright moments for the Toledo Mud Hens in their season opener against the Columbus Clippers on Friday.
Although the Mud Hens came up short in an 8-5 loss, they provided the 12,800 fans in attendance plenty of highlights that could be a sign of things to come.
Solo home runs from Jace Jung, Justyn-Henry Malloy, and Justice Bigbie were part of the five extra-base hits from the Mud Hens. First-year Mud Hens manager Gabe Alvarez was happy to see the ball jumping off the bats.
“The ballpark was playing hot today,” Alvarez said. “It’s great to see the guys driving the ball.
“We want to see that, we want them to swing aggressively, and we did a good job with that today.”
After rain soaked Toledo throughout the day — and after new Bowling Green State University football coach and former Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George was recognized while bringing the game ball to the mound — the Mud Hens got off to a quick start offensively when Jung belted a two-out shot over the left field fence with two outs in the bottom of the first inning. Three innings later, Malloy pummeled a 443-foot home run on the second pitch he saw from Clippers starter Doug Nikhazy, and Bigbie got in on the fun with a towering blast to left field in the seventh.
Andrew Navigato’s double and Bligh Madris’ two-run triple to center field helped give the Mud Hens a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning.
“Just to get it started, we started coming out swinging, so that’s fun to see,” Madris said. “The ball’s carrying nice here in Toledo early on, so we’re excited for the season and you’re going to see a lot of homers this year from the squad.
“Hitting’s contagious and homers are contagious. We trust our approach and trust our hitting coach and the plan we come up with leading up to the game every day. So if we continue to do that and put in the work every single day, then a lot of those will happen.”
Alvarez said he was happy to see Jung, the No. 7-ranked prospect in the Detroit Tigers’ system and the highest-rated prospect in Toledo, start off the season with a bang.
“Everybody that I’ve known that has homered the first at-bat of the season has gone on to have a huge year,” Alvarez said. “That’s big.
“It shows you what a clutch hitter he is because it’s a tough at-bat. You have a lot of adrenaline that first at-bat of the season, and just to go up there and homer off a left-hander, that’s not easy to do, especially the left-hander that we faced tonight.”
Meanwhile, Malloy drilled an 89 MPH fastball from Nikhazy that resulted in a no-doubter toward the Glass City Center on Monroe Street.
“Got a good pitch to hit, pretty good swing on it. Other than that, I was really just trying to stick to a plan and be on a heater, and I got a heater and I did some damage with it,” Malloy said. “So I was pretty pumped about that.”
Alvarez, a former player for the Mud Hens who spent the past three seasons coaching the Tigers’ successful Double-A affiliate, the Erie (Pa.) SeaWolves, was thrilled to be back in Toledo for his first game as a Triple-A manager.
“It was great, great atmosphere. Wish we would have gotten a ‘W,’ but it is what it is,” Alvarez said. “I thought we did a lot of good things out there.
“It felt great to put this uniform on, to be back in Toledo. That was a great feeling, very special for me.”
The Mud Hens will look to get their first win on Saturday afternoon. They will conclude the three-game series on Sunday.
“One-hundred fifty games, I think we’ll be all right,” Malloy said. “It’s game one.
“Obviously, you want to win game one, it’s opening day, it’s in front of your fans, it’s at home. All these cool things that are built up, and we didn’t get it done today. But kind of another thing where it’s not the end of the world. I think we’ve got plenty more baseball left to where we can make ourselves happy and make our fans happy as well.”
First Published March 29, 2025, 1:15 a.m.
