April 26-28

Friday morning in Quarryville for lunch with Jenny. We usual do lunch on Thursdays and Saturdays but since the first one for this week was on Tuesday she wanted to have the second on this day (all the same to me). In the evening the Royals played game #4 in Estero and evened the series with an overtime win. The club fell behind early before rallying for a 2-1 lead, Florida tied it in the closing minutes of regulation play. In the OT T.J. Syner netted the winner on a breakaway to set up the pivotal fifth game on Saturday evening and a guaranteed return to the Sovereign Center for game #6. On Saturday morning Marty, Dick and I met up for a full day of baseball, since Jenny and I weren't doing lunch it all worked out well for me. We headed west through York to Gettysburg and south from there to Frederick, Maryland. The Frederick Keys (the Orioles' Carolina League affiliate) hosted the Carolina Mudcats (Cleveland Indians club from Zebulon, NC) in a 2:00 game at Harry Grove Stadium. The Keys have been in the CL since 1989, in their first year they played at a small facility called McCurdy Field. The "Grove" opened in 1990, I've been there a number of times but not in recent years. The Keys won 5-4 scoring two runs with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning. The game ended around 4:30, we made our way out of Frederick and west twenty-five miles on Interstate Route 70 to Hagerstown for a 6:30 South Atlantic League game. The Hagerstown Suns defeated the Hickory (NC) Crawdads 8-2, the Suns are a Washington Nationals affiliate while the Crawdads are associated with the Texas Rangers. This game progressed in good order as well, it was over shortly after 9:00. We made our way north on I-81 into Pennsylvania towards Harrisburg, we were back in Lancaster around 11:00. On the way I called Jenny to see what was going on. She was listening to the Royals game on the Internet, they were in OT once again. I asked her to call me when it ended, not five minutes later the phone rang. The Royals won it in sudden death 5-4 to take a 3-2 series lead. The OT hero on this night was Evan Barlow, a recent returnee from the AHL. Barlow was with the Royals briefly in November and earned ECHL playoff eligibility despite spending most of the season in the AHL, needless to say his addition paid a huge dividend. The boys can wrap up the series with a win at home on Tuesday the 30th, a game #7 (which nobody wants to think about) would be Wednesday the 1st. After the full day on Saturday the next day was one of rest and relaxation, with a busy week coming up it was the perfect way to spend the day. Take care, thanks for reading.