They Played Five Innings in the Winter Storm

And you thought the polar bears were bad the last three games.

Most of the brave few in attendance at the BCB likely couldn't tell you who won the game if you asked them now, or at least would have to think about it. I looked it up, and the user-friendly Harrisburg Senators eked out the win, 3 to 2 in five absurd innings.

The first two innings went by just fine, actually. Under cloudy but dry skies, Harrisburg pushed a run across in the top of the 2nd, helped along when Curve starter Derek Hankins (now 2-1) threw the ball into center field on a pickoff attempt, putting Chris Marrero on third base with no outs. He scored on a sacrifice fly, and the run counted as unearned. That always struck me as curious: It's an 'unearned' run even though the pitcher made the error himself. I can see the logic behind it--ERA is supposed to measure only how he pitched, and you can look at his defensive numbers for the rest--but it still strikes me as fundamentally nonsensical, that a run the pitcher brought around via his own error is called 'unearned'.

The weather went from mildly bad to wacked-out insane in the3rd inning. The rain came down; the wind picked up; and by the end of the 4th the wind chill was around 25 degrees and the rain was pouring. The powers that be were hellbent on getting five innings in, though, and so they got five innings in, even though the rain and wind intensified and, in the 5th inning, it was pouring in sheets and snowing. Harrisburg committed several comical errors clearly caused by the slippery ball, but the Curve were unable to cash in on them.

Our failed scientists have yet to come up with waterproof paper, so the handful of scouts on hand joined me near the customer service booth, and team officials set them up a row of chairs. Rudy Owens and Tim Alderson, assigned pitch charting duties today, came with them, but like myself preferred to stand. (That's both of the last two Class A Starting Pitchers of the Year, I might note.) They had this disbelieving, 'this is the craziest thing I ever saw' look on their faces, watching snowflakes the size of golf balls fall in droves in mid-May.

Sometimes you get reminded that it really is a big world out there. Sub-freezing wind chills and rain-snow mix is fairly common in April in May in Altoona, but that reminder came to me when Tim said, 'This is the most snow I've ever seen in my life.' Tim is from Arizona, and spends his springs in Florida.

Rudy's from Arizona, too, but didn't comment on whether he'd seen snow before. I did get to overhear him telling Tim about pitching in the pouring rain in West Virginia last year, and shaking off Tony Sanchez over and over because he wanted to throw a curveball and Sanchez kept calling for a fastball. Sanchez will probably be joining us in Altoona before long; but then, Rudy might have pitched his way to Indianapolis by then. 37 strikeouts, 6 walks in 33 innings speak for themselves. If he keeps that up, he should be in Indianapolis by the end of June, and on track to be in Pittsburgh by this time next year. There's not much blocking him from the Pirates rotation, sadly.

We're on for another 10:30 A.M. tilt with the user-friendly Senators tomorrow morning, and then the boys hit the road for a while. The latest projections as of now are that the rain should abate in the late morning, so we should be able to play the game, perhaps after a brief rain delay at the start.