The new week started with an uneventful Monday but the next two days (or should I say EVENINGS) were anything but. Tuesday night at the ballpark was Game #1 of the playoff series with the Stormers hosting Southern Maryland. On this night the visiting Blue Crabs took a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning and added a back-breaking insurance run in the ninth. The Stormers got on the board with two out in the bottom half when Shawon Dunston walked and scored on Andretty Cordero's RBI double (which just barely missed being a game-tying home run) but the rally went no further as SM held on for the 2-1 win. Oscar De La Cruz worked into the sixth inning and suffered the tough-luck decision. It was a tightly-played tense ballgame that merely served as a prolog to what we witnessed in Game #2 on Wednesday night. The start was not promising, Southern Maryland scored four runs in the first inning and carried that advantage into the bottom of the seventh. Jacob Barfield's two-run home run made it a 4-2 game but the Crabs scored twice in the eighth to reestablish their four-run lead. In the bottom half Barfield came through again with an RBI hit making it 6-3 but SM got it back in the ninth, entering the bottom of the ninth the Stormers trailed by the same four-run margin they had been battling all night. Base hits by Anthony Peroni and Dunston put two men on base with one out, Cordero's RBI hit scored Peroni to bring the Stormers to within three. Ariel Sandoval batted next and nailed a three-run shot over the picnic tents in right field to tie the game at 7-7 and force extra innings. In the tenth the Crabs had men on first and second with one out, a base hit to center appeared to give them the lead but Sandoval's throw to home retired the lead runner for the second out, the trailing runner was caught between second and third and was tagged out to complete the inning-ending double play, In the home tenth Barfield batted first and flied out to left field, Jake Hoover (not known for the long ball) was next and he sent a drive deep to right and deep into the night for the walkoff game-winning home run. An uproarious celebration broke loose in the stands and at home plate when Hoover met his teammates, as the great MLB broadcaster Jon Miller once said it was "a late-evening middle-of-the-night miracle" (the game ended at 10:47). West Tunnell was the winning pitcher working the tenth inning, starter Brooks Hall went six innings for the no-decision. The 8-7 final squares the best-of-five series at 1-1, it continues in Waldorf on Friday the 23rd. By the time I got home it was almost 11:00, during the regular season there are times I might duck out early but the playoffs are another thing entirely. Take care, thanks for reading.
