The uncommonly warm weather was out in force as the new week started, it felt more like late July than April. Tuesday night was Opening Night at the ballpark on North Prince Street with the (no-longer BARN)Stormers beginning the franchise's twentieth year of existence and the nineteenth as a on-field entity (like the Royals, there is a year in there we don't talk about). The brand-new Hagerstown Flying Boxcars were the opponent, they had played an exhibition game at the ballpark as part of FanFest on the 20th. The Stormers roster is the usual mix of newcomers and returnees, on this night both factions played big roles. The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fifth when Chad Sedio walked and moved to second on Jack Conley's single, after a Trace Loehr sacrifice bunt and a walk to Shawon Dunston newcomer Isan Diaz delivered a sacrifice fly scoring Sedio putting the Stormers up 1-0. In the sixth newcomer Gaige Howard singled and came in on a Joseph Carpenter RBI double. A four-run seventh broke the game open, Dunston started it with a walk and Diaz followed with a base hit. Dunston scored on an RBI hit by newcomer Cristian Santana making it 3-0. Howard batted next, his two-run double into the leftfield corner chased home Diaz and Santana, after Carpenter lined out Chris Proctor rapped an RBI single plating Howard to make it 6-0. The visitors broke up the shutout bid with a two-out run in the ninth but it mattered little as the Stormers won it 6-1 before a crowd of better than 6300. Brad Markey was the starting pitcher with six inning of three-hit ball and four strikeouts, Max Green (one inning) and Noah Bremer (two) wrapped it up in relief. The series continues on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, I am unlikely to be present at either. Take care, thanks for reading.
