A lighter week this week. It is nice sometimes to stay close to home for a bit. It also helped that there was a doubleheader on Tuesday in Lancaster that helps to boost my game total. Of course in the baseball universe the big news is the All Star Game. I do not care. I don’t watch it. I have no interest in it. The only way I will ever really care is when the game comes back to Camden Yards and I have the opportunity to purchase a ticket as a season ticket holder. I’ll go for the heck of it but I don’t care who wins. Playing for home field advantage in the World Series is stupid in my opinion and I am glad that idea was scrapped. Of course MLB is worried about their ratings for the game and this did boost it albeit amidst much ridicule. It is also the commentators. I don’t like Joe Buck as a baseball announcer. Don’t really care for him in football either but then I don’t watch football so what do I care?
Game #92 Akron at Harrisburg. This completes the Eastern League for me. It is unusual that the Rubber Ducks are the last team off the board but that was the way the schedule fell this year. I do like the nickname, quack quack! It was a hot one today and it was still hot at gametime. Kyle McGowin pitched for Harrisburg against Jake Paulson for Akron. McGowin is one of the guys the Nationals got for Danny Espinosa and considering Espinosa can barely even hit AAA pitching I think the Nats won this deal, not that this is a trade Mike Rizzo will use as evidence to save his job in DC. Now this is a critical series for Harrisburg. Akron is in first place and Harrisburg just can’t seem to overtake Altoona (at least for the moment, we’ll see now that Mitch Keller is with Indy). The game was for the most part a low scoring affair until the 9th. Neither pitcher was sharp, Paulson pitched out of several jams and McGowin seemed to go to a full count on every batter but they kept the score at 1-1. I left after 7, I had spent most of the day out under the sun and it was stinkin’ hot today. It stayed over 90 degrees until about the 5th inning and at some point you just get tired of it. Even Weenie Boy who loves sitting in the sun wanted to sit in the shade for this one. Anyway Akron got 2 runs on a home run from Mark Mathias in the 9th but Harrisburg came back and scored 5 thanks to two Rubber Duck errors and a grand slam from Hunter Jones. Harrisburg wins 6-3.
Game #93 York at Lancaster. Alright, two games in the War of the Roses. York doesn’t like Lancaster and the feeling is mutual. OK That may not be true for the players and we here in the White Rose City are not going to come to blows with our Red Rose counterparts but on the sports field we despise them. I do like most of the breweries in Lancaster, I just wish they would be a bit closer to the stadium. Hey, I see we’re going to have a sixth brewery now downtown. I can’t wait to do a crawl in October and stumble home. Hopefully this time I will remember my house key so I don’t have to wait for my parents to get back into town to let me back into my own house. Anyway it finally rained here for the first time something like two weeks when a nice thunderstorm came through in the afternoon and was done by gametime. Got drenched in it and that was one heck of a downpour!
First the good news for this game: It was a koozie giveaway and there were $2 domestic drafts for an hour and a half during the game. I don’t drink at games normally but I partook in this one. Even got carded, I must look young. Now the bad: This game was a matchup of two former big leaguers, Jonathan Sanchez of York (who started a World Series game and threw a no-hitter in the bigs) against Jonathan Albaladejo for the Stormers. Guess you could say the battle of the Jonathans. Sanchez was wild while Albaladejo was on his game and since this was a 7 inning game it appeared that it would be a short game since Sanchez gave up two runs but Albaladejo was nearly unhittable, not surrendering his first hit until the 5th. Despite their starter being on and I would imagine keeping a good pitch count the Barnstormers brought in their closer Matt Reynolds who proceeded to surrender two homeruns to Melky Mesa and Michael Burgess. Tyler Clark then came up with two outs and appeared to knock another one out but it was called foul. By the time it was ruled foul he was already around second base. Looked good to me but the Revs manager didn’t argue and the Revs did have a 3-2 lead now. Things were looking up with All Star closer Grant Sides coming in but he then forgot how to get people out and while Lancaster only managed to get one they could have had a lot more leaving the bases loaded. The game continued into the 9th when Lancaster walked it off thanks to poor York defense and aggressive Lancaster baserunning. Lancaster wins 4-3.
Since some of you reading this may be interested in the Weenie Boy follies (if you aren’t just skip this section) and we have some new ones. The first one this is there is a Carolina League team located in Down Under. This was a failed reference to Down East (located in Kinston, NC). He also mistakenly knows them as the Mud Ducks. Down East is known as the Wood Ducks and a nearby team is the Mudcats. He just combined the two in his warped mind. The whopper though for this game came when we arrived and he didn’t want to get dinner. He had some Doctor Tso’s chicken for lunch. The General has been demoted it seems…
Game #94 York at Lancaster. Onto Game 2 where Joe Van Meter pitched for the Revs against John Anderson for Lancaster. It was late when this game started so I only stayed for the beginning so this will be brief. This was a wild one to start with both teams putting up runs until the Revs went on top for good with a 4-run third. Neither started made it through the third inning but the Revs just kept adding. York takes the second game 8-3. It was nice to see Isaias Tejeda back with York. He went 3-4 and homered in the 5th inning.
Game #95 Altoona at Reading. Didn’t go anywhere Wednesday. Not much appealing on the schedule and with Nate Caldwell behind the plate in Lancaster I skipped that one. Caldwell and York have a bit of a history and he is not exactly known around in York as a good umpire. He has a moving strike zone and has a hot head. A few years ago the Atlantic League had an umpire that seemed to hate York. I got a great pitcher of then-manager Andy Etchebarren arguing with him. When I got him to sign it he just looked at it, showed it to then-pitching coach (and current manager) Mark Mason and said “My favorite ump.” I had the picture framed. Anyway, stopped at Black Forest Brewing in Ephrata for dinner. First time there for me and then headed up the road to Stoutdt’s in Adamstown to pick up 2 sixers for $10 each. I didn’t realize that the game tonight was going to be a fireworks game so it was well attended. Cam Vieaux pitched for Altoona against Harold Arauz for Reading. This is the first game for Reading that I haven’t seen either Ranger Suarez or JoJo Romero. Hooray! Things started bad for Altoona. They were set down in the top of the first on about 6 pitches and then Reading’s leadoff hitter Malquin Canelo hit what should have been an easy out but right fielder Logan Hill lost it in the sun and Canelo got a triple. He overran the ball and it was fair by about 6 inches. That one will be on Baseball Bloopers (does that even exist anymore?). Fortunately Canelo never made it home. Altoona struck first scoring the first two runs of the game. Then Reading came back with homeruns by Austin Listi and Cornelius Randolph. The Curve struck back putting up 4 runs in the 6th and 2 more in the 7th while the Curve pitchers held Reading scoreless for the rest of the game. Altoona wins a critical game 8-2.
Game #96 Greensboro at Delmarva. Heading back down to Salisbury for a Mike Siedel bobblehead. He’s someone big in the weather community and he’s a local so he gets immortalized in bobblehead form. In actuality this is for me to hit several breweries in Delaware. Blue Earl in Smyrna, Mispillion River in Milford, Dogfishhead in Milton (no more free samples!?!), 16 Mile in Georgetown, Ocean City in Ocean City and Burley Oak in Berlin, Maryland. Tried to hit Backshore in Ocean City as well but I couldn’t find a parking spot. Considering that one is along the beach that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise but I tried anyway. This game looked like a good pitching matchup on paper with both pitchers having good records and good ERAs. Cameron Bishop for Delmarva held up his end of the bargain and Colton Hock for Greensboro wasn’t awful but he wasn’t good. The problem in this league is that the pitchers don’t go too far into the game and this became a battle of the bullpens. Delmarva had a 2-0 lead but the bullpen and a bad error by their catcher gave the lead away. Fortunately for the Shorebirds Zach Jarrett walked it off in the ninth with two outs. I was gone by then, it’s a long drive home from here and I really don’t like watching the relievers in this league. It was also nice to see you Dan.
Also had another Weenie Boy folly. We arrived at the park about an hour before the gates opened but there was no one in line for the bobblehead so we just stayed in the car. He was reading the paper and pointed mentioned an article about Russian President Vladimir Putnam. We’ve been mad at the wrong person all these years….
Game #97 Erie at Bowie. Back down to Bowie for a Jonathan Schoop bobblehead. I skipped West Virginia at Williamsport (and a bobblehead giveaway to boot!) because of the terrible weather forecast. I’ll head back up to Billport in August, the Black Bears are back in town the first week of August so I’ll skip one of the Altoona games in Harrisburg for that. Had a nice and easy drive down to Bowie on a Sunday morning and saw a lot of the usual suspects waiting in line. I was a bit intrigued about this one with three of the new players that Baltimore acquired for Manny Machado suiting up in this game including Dean Kremer who started for the Baysox. Now I am getting tired of seeing Erie this year and it seems that whenever I see them Beau Burrows is the pitcher. It’s not that he’s bad but I’d like to see someone else and of course guess who pitched in this game? Burrows. He was not good, surrendering homeruns to Martin Cervenka and Aderlin Rodriguez before being yanked in the 4th. He was replaced by Sandy Baez, who is the only other person I have seen start a game for Erie this year. Baez gave up a monster homerun to Anderson Feliz that cleared the advertisement board in right center. This one was all Baysox. Kremer was good until the 6th when he surrendered a run but got himself out of the jam and his trade partners Ryland Bannon started at second and went 1-2 and Yusniel Diaz started in center and went 0-3. Not included in the Machado trade but since I like his name Jay Flaa (he’d make a good Klingon) finished off the Seawolves in the 7th. Bowie wins 7-1. This was the first game of the doubleheader but after this ended the grounds crew put the tarp on the field and so I left. The heavens opened about 5 minutes later. The second game did get played but I was not there. Did get home in time to watch the Rugby Sevens World Cup semis.
On the docket for next week:
July 23 – Los Angeles at Philadelphia
July 24 – Road Warriors at York
July 25 – Buies Creek at Potomac, which will complete the Carolina League
July 26 – Reading at Richmond
July 27 – Toledo at Norfolk for a Rip Tide bobblehead
July 28 – Tampa at Baltimore for a Trey Mancini bobblehead
July 29 – Buies Creek at Wilmington
