August 16 is always an important date on the calendar, it's Jenny's birthdate, When I first knew her she would look forward to her birthday but in recent years not so much, I guess she feels there is a stigma of some kind attached to "getting older". We marked the occasion with a visit to an Italian-style restaurant in Willow Street, the same place we'd been to the year before. At the ballpark in the evening, the first order of business was the competition of the suspended game from Tuesday. When last we left the long Island Ducks and the Lancaster Barnstormers the visitors had rallied from a two-run eighth-inning deficit to take a one-run lead. The resumption on Wednesday was anticlimactic, it only took about twenty-five minutes with no further scoring for Long Island to win it 7-6. Jaret Lakind had started the game on Tuesday, Zach Warren pitched the fateful eighth and took the loss. The regular game started right on time at 6:30 and for the Stormers the offensive highlights were in short supply. The club had only three base hits while the Ducks scored an equal number of runs for the 3-0 win. Nile Ball worked into the eighth inning and deserved a better fate. The series (and the homestand) finished on Thursday night with the Stormers again falling behind by two runs early, Ariel Sandoval got one of them back with a first-inning RBI single. Long Island extended the lead to 3-1 in the second, in the home third the Stormers tied it on solo home runs by Yeison Coca and Wilson Garcia. Each team scored twice in the fourth, the Barnstormer runs coming on a Jack Conley RBI single and an Andretty Cordero sac fly. In the sixth the Good Guys took the lead for good when Conley reached on a fielders choice and scored on a Melvin Mercedes single, after Coca drew a walk he and Mercedes pulled off a double-steal with Melvin scoring from third to make it 7-5. The Ducks kept it close with a run in the seventh but the Stormers added two in their half on RBI hits by Conley and Mercedes. The final was 9-6, Jeff Bain went six for the win with Brandyn Sittinger and Mike Adams (save) in relief. The weekend was uneventful except for the standard lunch with Jenny on Saturday, the ballclub is back home on Friday the 25th. Take care, thanks for reading.
