[jksander]

June 14, 2025: This weekend we’ll put our 8-1 record up against the Frederick Keys, who come into the three-game series with a 4-5 record, having gone 4-2 on their field and 0-3 while on the road. Cam Leiter made his third start of the season, We took the lead with a solo homer by Tyler Albright, his second of the year, in the bottom of the first inning -- but they tied us in the top of the third with an RBI single from catcher Mac Rose, and in the top of the seventh they took the lead off a single by first baseman Ed Figueroa -- an unearned run, as Matthew Mateo scored after first reaching base on an E4 groundball error. We tied it up in the bottom of the ninth when Alex Lodise hit a single into right, Godbout scoring off an E8 error with Lodise taking second. But we did not score again, and this one went into extra innings tied up at 2-2. Our closer James Tallon gave up the go-ahead run via homer in the top of the 13th, after getting one out in the inning, but we limited the damage ... and in the bottom of the inning, with two outs, we tied it again off a sac-fly by Trevor Cohen! Jaden Stockton got his third out of the game, and the first of the 14th inning, via strikeout but his night ended there as he had to leave the game with an undisclosed injury. The game continued onward, as nobody could break this stalemate. T.R. Williams took over in the top of the 16th, our ninth pitcher of the afternoon, shutting them down quickly three in a row, but we left the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning when Clay Grady popped out to center ... unbelievable! Williams kept them from scoring in the 17th, and with the score unchanged we brought out our 10th pitcher, Liam Doyle, who threw 34 pitches and three innings of work three days ago. The game broke the six hour mark in the top of the 19th, and Frederick got two runners on in the 20th, but none managed to score. We brought out our final bullpen arm, Grant Richardson, in the top of the 21st as all involved were praying for an end to this one. Frederick loaded the bags in the top of the inning and left them all stranded with a strikeout ... and the game continued until, top of the 23rd and out of relievers, we brought out Jason Avila, our backup center fielder, to pitch the remainder. He immediately gave up a solo homer to Cooper Whitton, but he pitched around runners on second and third to get us into the bottom of the inning just trailing by the one run. We got a runner onto third base with two outs in the bottom of the inning, but the game ended there as Vince Fattore struck out swinging at 9:10 p.m.

All told, 21 pitchers took the mound today, including 12 for us counting the use of a position player to end the game once and for all. Avila took the loss, of course, with three hits and a run in the top of the 23rd. Cam Leiter had started us out with six innings and three hits, striking out seven with one earned run, and I’ll have to wonder if things would have gone differently if I’d let him go into the seventh ... he’d only thrown 75 pitches. The bullpen wound up throwing 252 of them, and Frederick outhit us 17-13 during the course of the eight hour game. Tyler Albright led our team, hitting three times with a run and an RBI while batting TEN TIMES. We struck out 31 of their batters while they only fanned 23 of ours.

Hell of a way to lose a six-game winning streak, but play on ...

June 15, 2025: Reliever Jaden Stockton’s injury is still being evaluated as we head into game two of three against Frederick. Today’s game started at 3:05 as we all tried to recover from yesterday’s marathon, and this time we wasted no effort in getting the lead -- with one out in the bottom of the second, Todd Hudson hit a grand slam out of right to put us up 4-0, his fourth homer of the season! But they loaded the bases in the top of the third, walking in a run to get on the board ... thankfully we were able to get back to back strikeouts and maintain the lead. J.J. Garcia took the ball in the sixth inning with the lead still 4-1, and Eddie Lopez hit a three-run homer to add on in the bottom of the inning, his first of the year. A.J. Colarusso came out to pitch in the eighth with a six-run lead, his first appearance of the season, giving up a solo homer to his first batter faced, but we walked in a run with the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning to get it back ... he’d stay in and shut them down in the ninth as we won big 8-2! Matthew Hoskins got the win, improving to 3-0 with a 1.72 ERA, allowing six hits, a walk and a run while striking out nine in five innings. Garcia got a hold, and Colarusso pitched two innings with three hits, two strikeouts and an earned run. We outhit them 11-10, with Hudson and Lopez, our eighth and ninth in the batting order, combining for three hits, three walks, three runs and seven RBIs.

Jaden Stockton has a strained forearm, and will be day to day for two weeks at the least. But it’s nothing that should greatly affect his draft chances.
 
June 16, 2025: It’s time for the rubber match against Frederick, and the Keys got off to a hot start in the first, scoring off a double by shortstop Lukas Lawrence to take the lead 1-0 midway through the inning. But that was it for scoring for a long time after, for either team, as we would go into the seventh inning stretch with the Keys still leading by the same one run. Several times we got into scoring position and left runners stranded, but our pitching kept us in it ... Liam Doyle, in particular, striking out the side in the top of the ninth to give him 2.2 hitless innings to keep us within a lone run of tying this game despite minimal offensive energy all day. In the bottom of the ninth with one out Clay Grady hit a single into center, but that was all we had in us ... Frederick won 1-0 to take the series two games to one, our first series loss of the season, their team outhitting us 9-7 and basically winning it for themselves in the first half inning. Evan Blanco had 6.1 innings with nine hits, a walk, five strikeouts and one earned run, falling to 0-2 despite a 1.53 ERA through three starts. Doyle was even better, striking out four batters while facing down eight of them, improving his ERA to 0.84 through 10.2 innings in five appearances. Cohen, Albright and Grady each hit twice, but we couldn’t string them together and fell to 9-3 as a result, cutting our lead in the league to one game over the 8-4 Trenton Thunder.