It was a beautiful night for a baseball game in a week that had experienced some pretty violent storms with substantial rain. As Mike Kravitz already reported, the field at Bethlehem was in excellent condition due to the work of the Town Park staff. The Pirates led off the 1st managing to turn 2 hits, a couple of steals and 1 error into a 4 run 1st inning. Mike Kane's pitching and some good defense kept the the Blue Jays offense stymied, scoring only 1 through the first 6 innings. A great play by shortstop Mike Labanowski going deep into the hole on a ground ball that appeared to already be in left field, fooled the Blue Jay on 2nd, and he was out trying to scramble back to 2nd. In fairness to the runner, I also thought the ball was through the infield into left as I watched from centerfield. The Pirates were able to add one insurance run in each of the 2nd, 4th and 5th innings. It turned out to be necessary, as the Blue Jays scored 3 in the 7th to make it a 7- 4 game. A few miscues on both sides, but all in all a well played game with strong pitching efforts.
