MUSKEGON – Someday Logan Fleener will look back on his first game as manager of the Muskegon Clippers and have a good laugh.

At the moment, however, he’s focused on putting Tuesday’s season opener in the rear-view mirror and moving on to a brighter tomorrow in the second game of the season.

It’s fair to say that neither team played well in the Clippers’ ugly 17-13 loss the Jet Box in front of a big crowd at Marsh Field.

There were a total of 24 walks (including 15 by six Clippers pitchers), nine errors (including six by Jet Box) and eight batters hit by pitchers.

It’s also fair to say that that the Clippers showed a lot of impressive fight, battling back from an 11-4 deficit in the fourth inning to make a game of it.

Muskegon actually tied the score 13-13 in the sixth inning, before the visitors scored two in the seventh and two more in the ninth to put the game away.

The Clippers had a chance to tie the game again in the eighth, but stranded runners on second and third in their last big threat of the night.

Now they are more than happy to move on to Game 2 of the season, a rematch with Jet Box on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Marsh Field.

“You expect some rust on day one – some of these guys have been off for three to six weeks (since their college baseball season) – but offensively we left a lot of guys on base,” said Fleener, a former Clippers player who replaced longtime manager Walt Gawkowski, who retired after last season.

“But for their first time together, I will say they fought all night long. We did a lot of things we could have done better, but the one thing we did do well was fight. That’s something we can take with us, and we’re proud of them for that.”

It was a really tough night for Clippers pitchers, including starter Parker Swanson, who gave up four earned runs on four hits and five walks in 1 1/3 innings. The losing pitcher was Lukas Brewer, who pitched the seventh inning and gave up a pair of runs after the Clippers had tied the score 13-13.

The six Muskegon pitchers surrendered 15 hits, 13 earned runs and 15 walks while striking out nine.

A few Clippers had good nights offensively. Cleanup hitter Trent Nielsen had two doubles and two RBIs, Spencer Nelson and Logan Todd each had two hits, and Colin Cornwell had three RBIs and scored four runs.

Muskegon had eight hits in the game, and only managed to score so many runs because of the avalanche of Jet Box errors.

Jacob Rybicki was the top hitter for Jet Box, collecting three hits and three RBIs, including a solo homer.

“It you add up errors, walks and batters hit by pitches, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game like this,” Fleener said. “It was a bizarre night. It was one of those nights where you take the good things and put away the bad. Tomorrow brings a new day. We have two more games against these guys and a chance to win the series.”