NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – The SteepleCats Sunday started their 2026 season the way they ended their 2025 campaign: with a narrow loss to the Sanford Mainers.

 

Sanford, which won a best-of-three playoff series against North Adams last August, scored four runs on 14 hits to earn a 4-2 win at Joe Wolfe Field.

 

The Mainers broke a 1-1 tie with a two-run rally in the third inning, and four Sanford pitchers combined to collect 11 strikeouts as the visitors improved to 2-1 this summer.

 

North Adams, which saw its planned road opener rained out on Saturday, got to open the season in front of its home fans.

 

And those fans saw a strong performance from the North Adams pitching staff, which, despite allowing 14 hits, including five doubles, gave up just three earned runs.

 

“I like the grit,” SteepleCats coach Mike Gladu said of his team’s Game 1 performance. “I thought the pitchers performed pretty well. We had a couple of situations where we definitely should have gotten some runs in and didn’t get that hit.

 

“And there were a couple of plays with a little rust. Certainly, the ball that was hit over [Evan] Meier’s in left field, he just mistracked that one. And the extra run they scored in the eighth, the kid wasn’t going to go [from third on a fly ball], we made a throw and nobody could stop it.