July 23-24

Had lunch at the mall on Monday morning, in the afternoon it was back to Baseballtown for the start of a week-long homestand. The R-Phils have struggled mightily since the month began, the club's record in July is just 5-15. It got very dark around 5:00, the grounds crew got the tarp down just in time for the skies to open. It poured for about twenty minutes but once it ended there was no further issue, the game time temperature was 82 degrees as we started right on time at 7:05. This was game #101 for the R-Phils and unfortunately the results were familiar as the visiting Altoona Curve won it 7-1. Darin Ruf's second-inning home run was the lone bright spot for the R-Phils, Trevor May started and took the loss. Tuesday was a much more uncomfortable day, temperatures were in the 90s in the afternoon. At the ballpark it was down to 85 by game time as Altoona made it two straight with a 6-2 win. Once again the R-Phils' offense was largely silent, a Sebastian Valle home run and an RBI groundout by pitcher Mario Hollands accounted for the scoring. Hollands was the hard-luck loser, he deserved a better fate. The loss drops the ballclub's record to 51-51, the first time the club has been at .500 this season. The boys will try to right the ship in the series finale on Wednesday. Take care, thanks for reading.