The baseball gods were smiling on us at New Scotland last night, as the worst of the rain missed the ball park. There was a light shower as the game started, but it stopped in the second inning and the game went on. The Highlanders were saving their best pitchers for the playoff run and started "the Cosinator". The Marlins were resting their top three pitchers for the playoff round and reached out to Hall of Famer Jim Ansel to start. Jim was using the game as part of a rehab process and had only been on the hill for two ineffective innings in a 46+ start for the Golden Marlins.
The Marlins got 3 off of Cos in the first with RBI's from Craft, Lochner, and Mitchell. The Highlanders bounced right back with two in the bottom half as Griffin had a big double to the left center gap. After that, the runs kept coming for the Marlins, but Jim Ansel started to look like his old self. He was hitting his spots with all three pitches and occasionally zipping a fastball by the hitters. He allowed just three runners on first the rest of the way, with two walks and a hit batter. Randy Craft came in and threw a scoreless sixth to complete the 13 - 6 -1 regular season.
Ex-Marlin John Gorman had a double and single and was the toughest out all night. Lochner and Craft led the Marlins attack with a double and single each.
The Marlins land in the third seed with the victory and are armed and ready for the next three weeks.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL!