September 10, 2010

Marauders Season Ends

Life is great, something to be discovered and enjoyed and loved one day at a time. It is a lot like the 2010 Bradenton Marauders baseball season. The sad thing about both of these things is, the last event in them is a crushing defeat. Bradenton had theirs last night as the Charlotte Stone Crabs shut down their might offense, taking the best-of-three series with a 2-1 victory.

The Marauders were valiant to the end, fighting through a two hour, 16 minute rain delay which cost them starter Nathan Adcock (11-7, 3.38) after just one inning. They took the lead in the top of the second after the delay on Adam Davis's double, scoring Eric Fryer for the 1-0 advantage. But the bats were silent the rest of the way, and the two runs the Crabs pushed across in the bottom of the second held up.

Charlotte moves on to face the Tampa Yankees in the five-game championship round, while this talented Marauders squad hopes to reunite in Altoona, healthy, for another shot at a title in 2011. One wonders if the result might have been different this year if not for the Tony Sanchez injury and the ridiculous headhunting ways of opposing FSL pitchers.

There was good news yesterday too as the Altoona Curve evened their first round series with a 6-4 home win over Harrisburg. Jeff Locke had an uncharacteristically bad start, failing to make it out of the fifth inning, but the patient Curve offense worked six walks and got timely hits. Andrew Lambo did the most damage with two doubles en route to a three-RBI night while Derek Hankins (5-5, 2.83) went 3.1 strong innings in relief for the win.

Tonight the best-of-five series moves to Harrisburg with the teams tied with one game apiece. Altoona lefthander Justin Wilson (11-8, 3.09) faces Harrisburg's righty Ryan Tatusko (3-1, 1.72) in this pivotal Game 3.

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