The blast furnace was over for business with the start of the new week, on Monday evening I had a message from Jr. Tornado head coach Justin Esh. The JrT was scheduled to play at home on Tuesday night, the game time was being moved from 6:00 to 7:30 in an effort to avoid the peak heat (can't say I could argue with that strategy one little bit). On Tuesday night it was ninety (that's NINETY as in "9-0") degrees and sunny at game time with only a hint of a breeze coming in from right field. Conestoga Valley was the opponent, before the game they made a last-minute lineup change and their coach actually informed me of it personally (wow, what a concept!!!). The JrT took a 1-0 lead in the first, Ty Jenkins walked and scored on Alex Rodriguez' RBI hit. CV scored twice in the second and once in the third, in the bottom half Alex Ruiz doubled and touched home on Nolan Book's base hit making it 3-2. The JrT tied it 3-3 in the fifth when Cole Hatfield doubled and scored on an error but in the seventh CV put together a two-out two-run rally and took it 5-3. Chase Travitz started on the mound with Rodriguez, Ruiz (taking the tough-luck loss) and Book working in relief. On Wednesday I was with Jenny as we did our usual midweek lunch in Quarryville, in the evening I was at the professional ballpark on North Prince Street. The Long Island Ducks joined the Atlantic League as an expansion club in 2000, with Somerset (the last of the league's "original six") now in affiliated ball they are the league's senior franchise. The Ducks won the first game of this series on Tuesday by the eye-catching score of 19-18 (that is not a misprint), on this night the Stormers got even with a 16-8 win. Just about everyone in the lineup had a hand in the offense, Blake Gailen and Anderson De La Rosa each had a home run and three RBI while Blake Allemand also went yard and had two ribbies. Trayvon Robinson had a triple and three runs batted in, ex-Atlanta Braves property Cleuluis Rondon had a double and two RBI, Caleb Gindl had an RBI double and Kelly Dugan had four base hits and one RBI. Dominic DiSabatino started and went six innings on a hot night for the victory. Take care, thanks for reading.
