April 28

Friday night baseball on North Prince Street as the Barnstormers played the thirteenth home opener in franchise history. This was the first time I was able to be at the opener, in past years it was on a Thursday or on another night when dek hockey kept me away. The Atlantic League's twentieth season officially started on April 21st, the Stormers played their first six games on the road. On this night the Sugar Land Skeeters were the opponent, they were playing their first road game after a week at home. Original Barnstormer Ross Peeples is the club's new manager, Scott Patterson (another inaugural Stormer) is his pitching coach and Josh Bell (a Stormers player in 2016) is the new hitting coach. The roster itself features the usual mix of returnees and newcomers. The visitors from Texas took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first, in the bottom half ex-Kansas City Royal property Darian Sandford walked and scored on Caleb Gindl's RBI single, Gindl would come home on Sean Halton's sacrifice fly to knot the score at 2-2. Sugar Land plated three in the third to go up 5-2. in the ninth a two-run home run by Gindl made it 5-4 but the Stormers could come no closer. Starting pitcher Bryan Evans worked five innings and suffered the loss, he was followed in relief by Scott Shuman (from the Tampa Bay organization) and John Anderson (Toronto). An excellent Opening Night crowd was on hand on an unusually warm April evening, more of the same weather is expected through the rest of the weekend. Take care, thanks for reading.