Early woes continue as Bees take Norwich home-opener

In front of a crowd of more than three thousand, Norwich’s bats continued to stay quiet in a 5-2 loss to New Britain in the Sea Unicorns’ home opener Monday night.

Norwich was only able to squeak out two hits on the night and didn’t score a run after the second inning. Bees starting pitcher Brian Hart stumbled in the first two innings, thanks in no part to the two errors his team committed that allowed both Sea Unicorns runs to score.

New Britain jumped on Norwich starter Curren Larson early and often. The first five Bees hitters in the game reached base safely with three of them coming around to score, giving New Britain a 3-0 lead before Norwich even stepped to the plate.

Larson settled down after that, not allowing a runner past second base in his next three innings of work. He struck out four across four innings, leaving the game with the score 3-2 in favor of the Bees.

While the Norwich offense continues to struggle early in the season, the pitching has been up and down in the first four games.

After John Ruggiero and Connor Podeszwa each went five innings in their starts on Thursday and Friday, Norwich’s two starters on Sunday and Monday went a combined 5.1 innings, putting a heavy load on the bullpen. The Sea Unicorns have already used 13 different pitchers across four games.

Norwich will now travel to Westfield for a date with the undefeated Starfires Tuesday night, before a quick turnaround when the Sea Unicorns face the Bees for a third time this season, Wednesday morning in New Britain.