August 1-4

Friday morning: the first day of the new month, I was with Jenny and Helen for lunch. We were doing our weekend date a day early because the ladies wanted to utilize Saturday for getting caught up on things around the house. On Saturday the Barnstormers returned home from a brief road swing for a three-game series, the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs were the opposition. This was the Stormers' ninth Saturday home date and the first one Jenny and her mother missed, it's not really a big thing because the Crabs are back in on the next Saturday home date as well. On this night on North Prince Street the fans were treated to a roller-coaster ride disguised as a baseball game. The Barnstormers took a 2-0 lead in the second on a Lance Zawadzki RBI double and a solo home run by Juan Apodaca, the Crabs replied with two of their own in the third to tie it. Brett Carroll's run-scoring double gave the Stormers a 3-2 lead in their half of the third but SM put three more on the board and led by two into the bottom of the fifth. Back-to-back RBI hits from Gabe Jacobo and Ben Francisco knotted the game at 5-5, in the seventh the Crabs took the lead back at 6-5. In their half of the seventh the Stormers seemingly broke it open, RBI hits from Francisco and Carroll, a Blue Crabs error and a bases-loaded hit batsman gave the home team a 9-6 lead. In the eighth the game boomeranged in a big way as the Crabs put up a six-spot and held on for a wacky 12-9 victory, Pete Andrelczyk took the loss in relief of Starter Dan Osterbrock. Sunday was the typical stay-in-and-do-nothing day, the game at the ballpark started at 1:00 but I (of course) was not there. On Monday I did my usual lunch at the mall, in the evening I was back at the ballpark for the series' rubber game (the Barnstormers had won on Sunday afternoon). On this night Southern Maryland ended the suspense early with a 5-0 second-inning lead. The Barnstormers got on the board in the fourth on an Andrew Clark two-run homer but that would be it as the Crabs took it 5-2, Cory Wade started for the Stormers and suffered the loss. The ballclub takes to the road for seven days, the next home date is Tuesday the 12th. Take care, thanks for reading.