July 19-22

The morning errand run was about all that happened on Monday, with temperatures approaching the 90s there wasn't any big reason to be outside any longer than necessary. On Tuesday evening we were at McCaskey for what was essentially a mini-playoff game, the Junior Tornado hosted Solanco in the final game for both clubs. There are thirteen teams in the league and (to borrow an old expression) the bottom seven in the standings were so close together you could have covered them with a handkerchief. On this night the scenario was simple: a win would keep you alive for a berth in the postseason while a loss would almost certainly end it. It was another hot one, at 6:00 game time it was 87 degrees and partly cloudy with a slight breeze from right to left. Solanco scored first with a single run in the second inning, the JrT matched it in the bottom half when Tobe Kuntz singled and touched home on Braulio Rivera's RBI double. In the fifth Rivera stroked his second double of the night and scored on Alex Ruiz's RBI single giving the JrT the lead. Solanco put a two-out runner on base in the seventh but he was cut down trying to steal for the final out as the JrT held on for the big 2-1 win. Chase Travitz worked six innings for the victory with Alex finishing it for the save (Quick Baseball Trivia: on only one occasion in major league history has a World Series ended on an caught-stealing, it was in 1926 and the baserunner was the legendary Babe Ruth). The club finishes with a 3-3 mark at home and 2-4 on the road, they qualify for the postseason as the #8 seed. On Wednesday we did our usual lunch visit in Quarryville, in the evening I was back on North Prince Street. The High Point Rockers were the last opposing club to visit in 2021, they are in their third year as an Atlantic League franchise. I don't know when monsoon season started around here but it's in full swing, on this night we were hit by a downpour between 6:00 and 6:30 that delayed the start for about fifty minutes. Once the game began the visitors from North Carolina took a 3-0 lead in the third, the Barnstormers scored in the home half on singles from Cleuluis Rondon (run scored) and Alejandro De Aza (RBI). In the fourth Kelly Dugan singled and scored on Anderson De La Rosa's RBI groundout to make it 3-2 but High Point got that run back in the fifth and added two more in the seventh, the final score was 6-2. Francisco Mendoza started for the Stormers and took the loss. The game wound down shortly after 10:30, about twelve hours later the teams were back at it for an 11:00 Camp Kids Day game from which I was absent. This was the last game of a seventeen-day fifteen-game homestand, the Stormers won 6-4 to finish the homestand at 7-8. The ballclub hits the road for a week, they come home on Friday the 30th. Take care, thanks for reading.