Somewhat back to normal this week. I put a lot of miles on the car last week and need a bit of a break and with some lousy weather in the forecast I got it. The cats were reminded that I do indeed live there as well and as a bonus I got to see one of my favorite episodes of WKRP in Cincinnati. It’s the one where Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap do the drunk test with the state policeman but Johnny does better on the test after getting drunk. Throw in the hijinx with Les Nessman and Herb in the mascot outfit duking it out with their rival’s mascot and it’s good clean fun. The reporter never did find out why Bailey was in the men’s room. I don’t really care for the shows on today, I find the comedy shows like WKRP and Hogan’s Heroes much more entertaining. Anyway onto this week’s games.

Game #18 Cleveland at Baltimore. A rare wrap around series here, otherwise I probably would have taken in Sunday’s game. Of course that let me take in the Sunday game in Philly with my Pirates, of course had I known….Anyway Kevin Gausman pitched for Baltimore against Carlos Carrasco for Cleveland. I remember Carrasco when he was a can’t miss prospect with the Phillies before being traded as a part of the Cliff Lee deal. I saw him pitch the first time I went to Reading for a game. Haven’t seen him since until tonight. This was an enjoyable game, played at a crisp pace and was the quintessential pitcher’s duel. Gausman was sharp for 8 innings but made one mistake that Yonder Alonso put over the centerfield fence. He even had an immaculate inning, 9 pitches, 9 strikes, 3 strikeouts. With the average Oriole team that would have been enough but this team can’t seem to hit its way out of a wet paper bag. Chance Sisco got an RBI single off of Carrasco but that was it. This was a combination of Carrasco being on, the Oriole bats being off and some bad baserunning from the Orioles. Final score was 2-1.

Game #19 Arizona at Philadelphia. Ben Lively started for Philly and was lousy, he wasn’t even fooling the Diamondback’s pitcher. He was yanked in the 3rd after spotting Arizona a 6-0 lead. The Diamondbacks added two more that inning off of Drew Hutchinson (Lively was charged for one of them). Philly could not get much going against Matt Koch, they got one run off of an Aaron Altherr double and added one later in the game. Arizona wins 8-2. Something was not right with Lively and he was placed on the DL the next day.

Game #20 Lancaster at York.  Opening night for the defending Atlantic League champion Revolution against our most hated rival, that smelly team from across the river. One can imagine that they were not happy last year, what with having the best record in the league but coming in second in both halves which meant that they missed the playoffs. They can’t really say much about York since we also retook the Community Cup last year as well. York got on the board first with a leadoff homerun from Jared Mitchell which is a heck of a way to start a season. Lancaster fought back taking a 3-1 lead thanks to some wildness from Revs starter Jay Gause who had four wild pitches in the game. Gause did settle down and the Revs bullpen didn’t give up any more runs. York came back when Barnstormer’s left fielder Trayvon Robinson lost a ball in the lights that went for a double and then Ryan Dent blasted a three run homer to deep center. Revs take Opening Night 4-3. Walked out with lots of goodies. The K man struck out so I got free mozzarella sticks from Rutters and free samples were being given out of a new energy drink. I was told to take a case so I did.

Game #21 Altoona at Harrisburg. Always nice to take in Altoona in Harrisburg even if I will be seeing Altoona a lot more than usual this year. A nice quick game too coming in at about 2 and a half hours. Altoona’s Brandon Waddell was not sharp but was effective and pitched into the seventh surrendering only one run. Harrisburg’s Wirkin Estevez matched him, giving up only a Christian Kelley monster blast onto the boardwalk in left. Altoona’s bullpen was shaky and neither Yeudy Garcia or Tate Scioneaux were sharp and they gave up the difference with a lot of wild pitches. Harrisburg wins 2-1. Walked out with another free order of bread sticks since the K man struck out and my lucky number was called so I got a $8 gift card to Ollies. Sweet! I haven’t had my lucky number called there in 2 years and I figured after the Reading game last week when there were about 100 people in the stands if I couldn’t win it that night I would never win. The month of April has been good to me.

Game #22 SWB at Lehigh Valley. Scott Kingery bobblehead night. Hit several Lehigh Valley breweries beforehand. Visited St. Boniface in Ephrata, Saucony Creek and Golden Avalanche in Kutztown, Weyerbacher in Easton, Lost Tavern in Hellertown and Bonn Place in Bethlehem. Wanted to also visit Hijinx in Allentown but I made a wrong turn and wound up on 22 so I just went right to the stadium since the Union Blvd. Bridge was closed. Guess I could have taken the American Parkway but oh well, I’ll be back. Knew something was up when they opened the gates 20 minutes early and you could see the rain clouds coming and right when the gates were going to open the heavens opened up. The Iron Pigs have wifi and the forecast did not look good so I left. The game wound up being postponed anyway so I’ll get a free game in when Indianapolis comes to town in August. It’s too bad, Scranton had Chance Adams going, I’ve never seen him pitch before and Lehigh had Enyel de los Santos, the guy they got straight up for Freddy Galvis. I was looking forward to seeing him for the first time. I’ll be back on Tuesday.

Game #23 Detroit at Baltimore. My first Sunday game at Camden Yards. I enjoy these and it helps that my seat is always in the shade though I wouldn’t mind being in the sun for an April game. It was also nice of the Orioles to move the gametime up half an hour. I was more than worried when the Orioles lineup was posted, it wasn’t exactly like Buck Showalter was throwing out the ’27 Yankees. They even had a late addition with Pedro Alvarez. It was well that they did. While Pedro played the field (and it was an adventure everytime the ball was hit to him) he knocked 2 homeruns. Trey Mancini led off for the Orioles with a homerun and they held on from there. Kevin Gausman was good enough, he did give up a monster shot to John Hicks. Daniel Norris started for the Tigers. This was the first time I ever saw him and he was not good, being yanked in the 3rd with an apparent injury. Orioles win 5-3, a rare series win for them. By the way, could Spring start at some point?

For April (and the tail end of March) I have seen 10 major league teams, 7 Eastern League teams, 4 Carolina League teams, 2 South Atlantic League teams and 2 Atlantic League teams. Off to a good start.

On the docket for next week (weather permitting)

April 30 Pittsburgh @ Washington
May 1 Syracuse @ Lehigh for a Rhys Hoskins bobblehead
May 2 Pittsburgh @ Washington
May 3 Pittsburgh @ Washington
May 4 Philadelphia @ Washington for a Max Scherzer bobblehead
May 5 Erie @ Altoona for a Starling Marte mini bobblehead
May 6 York @ Lancaster

Site Updates:
2nd Story Brewing added to Breweries visited page and new images added to Peoples Natural Gas Field.