The comfortable temperatures and lower humidity were still in evidence at the start of the new week, on Tuesday night the Barnstormers continued the homestand as the Charleston Dirty Birds visited from the depths of the darkest mines of West Virginia (sometimes I think there must be some sort of competition within Minor League Sports to see who can come up with the strangest and most convoluted identity). On this night the Stormers put together a filthy first inning, after leadoff hitter Melvin Mercedes was retired Yeison Coca and Andretty Cordero posted back-to-back singles, a fielding error on Cordero's hit allowed Coca to score the inning's first run. Ariel Sandoval followed with a double to plate Cordero with run #2, after Wilson Garcia was hit by the pitch Joseph Carpenter stroked an RBI single scoring Sandoval with the third run. Chad Sedio skied to left for out #2, Shawon Dunston JR batted next and homered down the line in right to make it 6-0. That lead held up until the sixth when Charleston posted a single run, two more in the eighth made it a 6-3 game. In the home eighth the Stormers answered with three of their own, Garcia started it with a solo shot to right. Sedio was hit by the pitch and Dunston singled, Jack Conley's RBI double scored Sedio and sent Dunston to third, a wild pitch allowed Shawon to score the inning's third run. Charleston scored a cosmetic run in the ninth but it was nowhere near enough as the Stormers took it 9-4. Matt Swarmer earned the win with fine innings of no-hit ball, relief support came from Brian Marconi, Garrett Granitz and Nick Duron earing the save. The game started at 6:30 and was over before 9:00 largely thanks to the new "speed-up" rules being used throughout pro ball these days. Much was made of them when they were first implemented but now that everyone has become acclimated it never seems to be much an issue anymore and the games in general are moving at a much better pace. Take care, thanks for reading.
