ALTOONA — One hour to first pitch …
Game: Altoona Curve vs Reading Phillies, 6:00 p.m.
Site: Blair County Ballpark.
Pitching: RHP Derek Hankins vs. RHP Mike Cisco.
Weather: 68 degrees.
Game Updates: My Twitter Feed
Lineups:
Altoona Curve:
7. Miles Durham, RF
9. Hankins, P
Reading Phillies:
1. Keoni DeRenne, 2B
2. Timo Perez, LF
3. Cody Overbeck, 3B
4. Tagg Bozied, 1B
5. Tuffy Gosewisch, RF
6. Kevin Nelson, C
7. Freddy Galvis, SS
8. Gabriel Suarez, CF
9. Cisco, P
Joining me in the press box today is Kevin Creagh, contributor to the site, and author of the Know Your Enemy series. The next installment of the series will go up tomorrow night, covering the Milwaukee Brewers.
More to come in a bit.
UPDATE 5:20 PM: Recapping the transactions from today:
-Joe Martinez was promoted to Pittsburgh.
-Phillip Irwin was promoted from West Virginia to Bradenton, as reported earlier.
-Justin Ennis was promoted from State College to West Virginia.
-Kevin Decker was sent back from Altoona to State College.
-Craig Hansen was promoted from Bradenton to Altoona.
UPDATE 5:40 PM — Hanging with Tim today at the end of his marathon road trip. He’s really doing solid work driving all over the PA-MD region to cover the affiliates. Always a good time at Altoona’s park…decent in-game contests, good ballpark food, and great prices. Can’t believe Altoona doesn’t support this team more than they do with better attendance. Would love to see the Washington Wild Things, currently an Indy league team 30 minutes from Pittsburgh, turn into a low-level affiliate for the Pirates. They would draw very well.
Looking forward to seeing d’Arnaud build off his huge night last night. Too bad we’re seeing Hankins instead of Owens. Hopefully Hague parks one over the Budweiser sign in left-center.
UPDATE 5:55 PM: Altoona just announced their awards. Hector Gimenez named the team MVP. Rudy Owens named the pitcher of the year. Matt Hague got the “Ironman” award. Josh Harrison received the “Unsung Hero” award. Curve manager Matt Walbeck named the Eastern League Manager of the Year.
UPDATE 6:00 PM: Game has started, switching over to Twitter.
UPDATE 6:26 PM: First look at Lambo…grounded out to 1B on first pitch. Not much to analyze there. Batter before was Hague who popped out in 1B foul territory kind of weakly. Still calling a HR for Hague.
UPDATE 6:53 PM: Hague and Mercer with RBI singles to put the Curve up 2-0 after 3 innings. Hankins may add an extra mph this inning to shut down this “experienced” Reading Phillies lineup with Tagg Bozied, Timo Perez, and Freddy Galvis. And as soon as I type that, the Mayor goes out with an injury.
UPDATE 7:20 PM: Curve wriggle out of a bases loaded, no out jam with some nice defense by d’Arnaud (after some shaky defense by Harrison). Wow, does Colla throw across his body. Mercer catches a can of corn for the 3rd out.
UPDATE 7:46 PM: Gimenez, named as the Curve MVP before the game, ripped a double into the LF corner to give the Curve a 3-1 lead.
UPDATE 8:25 PM: Everyone’s favorite DL pick, Daniel Moskos, is on to close it out in the 9th and is hitting 94 (on the Curve gun, which means 96 real life). The crowd is hanging on every pitch and has not been this animated all night…they love him. He walked the 2nd batter he faced and wasn’t even close on his balls outside the zone.
