Not Exactly How It Was Drawn Up

This past weekend was a fun time down in Maryland with my parents and sister. But, like most things in life and sports, didn't necessarily go quite as planned. You hear it all the time in sports where the football team has a plan drawn up on how to win the game and then they have to throw it out when they get down 17-0 in the first quarter. Well, for us mother nature decided to throw a wrench into our plans.

Here was the original plan: Friday game in Frederick, Saturday game in Bowie, Sunday game in Harrisburg. Here's how it went:

My parents and I get down to Frederick and meet up with my sister and husband for dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries (great place!). At this point, the sun's still shining. We check on the radar and there's one teeny-tiny green blob that looks like it'll pass through. We get our tickets and get in to the stadium and notice the tarp's still on the field even though it's just a sprinkle. Then, the rain starts.......and doesn't end for another two hours!!! That little blob turned in to a long line of showers. Who knew? I guess this is why I'm not a meteorologist.

Now we move to Saturday. Just two days earlier the forecast for Saturday was 10% chance of precip in the evening. However, after consulting the radar, we made the decision that we didn't want to go the whole way down to Bowie (about an hour or so away) just to turn around and come back because of a rainout. Plus, we had already bought the tickets from Friday night and needed to exchange them (no refunds on baseball tickets). So, Saturday night we were able to catch most of the two seven-inning games with a stop back at sister's house for blueberry pancakes during a one hour delay during the first game (the advantage of living 5 minutes away unlike my 90 minute drives to Altoona). Also, Saturday night I had a chance to catch up with an old buddy named B. He's a fellow PSU IE although he stuck around the whole way through his PhD and is now doing some crazy consulting and data analysis in DC.

So, Sunday morning we were debating if it was worth it to make the attempt up to Harrisburg with more green on the radar. We were torn because we were going to meet great friend J and his family for the game. But, we looked at the radar and the forecast and made the decision to not risk adding on two more hours of driving for another rainout. We ended up going to her church, grabbing lunch at a great place, and then getting home around dinner time.

The other thing that didn't quite go as planned was my first marathon Saturday long run. 16 miles was on the menu and I mapped out this nice 8-mile out and back through downtown to Frederick Community College. Since I have been running with the XC team and also with Beth I somehow already accumulated 47 miles for the week before Saturday (and the plan called for only 44 miles) Oops. I ended up paying for it with about two miles to go. It was humid and nasty (at least a lot more than what we've been used to) and I bonked. I guess I should have taken a second gel. Oh well. Lesson learned and hopefully this weekend's run up in Michigan will go better.

Okay, on to the Pirates. In Frederick, we saw them play Lynchburg (the Pirates' Hi-A affiliate) so I was able to do some "scouting" if you want to call it that. In the first game, the starting pitcher was Jeff Locke (acquired in the McLouth trade). Locke's been having a tough year, but he's a lefty and he's 21 so no need to give up on him yet. Friday night was not much different for him. He reached his organization-imposed 30-pitch limit with two outs (and three runs) in the first inning and was lifted. So, not much to write home about for him.

In the second game, Bryan Morris (from the Bay trade last year and pictured below warming up), is finally healthy this year and pitched six innings and gave up a tough three runs in the 5th inning--his first 'quality start' of the year. He looked solid and was hitting the low 90's and keeping the other team off-balanced.

Offensively, Lynchburg's best players have either been promoted to Altoona (Alvarez, Durham)or are injured (D'Arnaud). So, that left 2008 3rd round pick SS Jordy Mercer (pictured below). He had a rough couple of games, but is still pretty high on the organization's prospect list. Other than that, Jose de Los Santos is only hitting .245 but has 42 steals in 48 attempts. Matt Hague (6' 3" 225) and Eric Huber (6' 6" 230) are hitting pretty well and Alex Presley's only hitting .240 but he seems like he's a solid player.

Finally, no attempts at funnel cake for the weekend. I figured I'd hold off on that.

That's about all I had for the blog and then the big Jack Wilson trade happened this afternoon. I think I'll reserve the opinions and analysis of the trades later this weekend because methinks there's more trades that may be coming over the next few days.

Up next, DiGiorno pizza night and then taking the dog down to Greensburg and getting ready for the big trip to Michigan. We've got the food stops laid out, so we're good to go!