New Scotland on another perfect baseball evening. The visiting spiders scored 4 runs in the top of the first against Cardinals starter Jerry Solomon who delivered 35 pitches, but did not walk a batter. Instead he allowed 4 singles, hit a batter, and went deep in the count several times. The Cardinals quickly proved that they showed up to make it difficult for the arachnids as they put three on the board in the bottom of the inning off starter Wayne Nicholson who yielded three singles and hit a batter and capitalized on an outfield error making it a one run ball game after one. Solomon came back in the top of the second and proceeded to strike out the first two arachnid hitters and induced a pop up on the third to have a 1 2 3 inning. The arachnids pushed one more across in the top of the third off reliever Big Bill Chichester on two walks and a single. 5 to 3 spiders. Back come the hungry Cardinals in the bottom of the inning who saw Rick Saidenberg walk with two outs and he was driven home by a long double by Steve Schaefer. Nicholsen immediately picked off Schaefer to end inning . 5 to 4 arachnids. Top of the fourth McCarthy leads off with a walk, Tom King sac bunts him to second and John Reel drives McCarthy home with a single. The quiet power of small ball. 6-4 Spiders. No offensive production for either team in the fifth inning, but there were some extraordinarily fine infield defensive plays. The arachnids made the Cardinals job a little more difficult as they scored two more runs in the top of the sixth on a lead off single by Darrell Duncan, a gapper double by Lee Madsen driving in Duncan, and another double by Joe Parker bringing home Madsen. 8-4 Arachnids after 6 and that is the way it ended as Nicholsen picked up a complete game victory against a very fine Cardinals team.
Leading the offense for the Cardinals was Steve Schafer who swung a potent bat with a long single, and a longer double, and two RBIs. For the arachnids, Madsen a single and double while driving in three runs, Parker with a single and double and two RBIs and Jim Edelman with a ground rule double. Nicholsen with a complete game victory giving up seven hits, two walks, one hit batter, 1 K, and four earned runs. For the Cardinals, Solomon and Chichester combined to surrender 10 hits, five walks, and struck out four.
The Arachnids record now stands at 7-2-1, good for 2nd place, while the Cardinals remain firmly in the race at 5-3.
Happy 4th of July one and all. May the Good Lord bless this nation through these challenging times in our quest to form a more perfect union.
-- Edited by crowbait on Thursday 4th of July 2024 12:44:40 PM
-- Edited by crowbait on Thursday 4th of July 2024 01:02:11 PM
