The Harrisburg Senators are back on City Island tonight with a chance to measure themselves against the team sitting in front of them.
Richmond arrives at FNB Field at 5-1 in the second half and 48-26 overall, carrying the edge of a club that has picked up right where it left off. Harrisburg, meanwhile, is 3-2 in the second half and 37-37 overall, just 1.5 games behind Richmond in the division. The Flying Squirrels won the first series between the teams earlier this month in Richmond, taking four of six, and the Senators get the first crack at turning that around.
Josh Randall gets the ball for Harrisburg. He’s 3-1 with a 3.33 ERA and has been steady in a short AA stint, including another solid outing last week against Chesapeake. Richmond counters with right-hander Trystan Vrieling, who already saw the Senators in the previous series and worked five innings while giving Harrisburg hitters trouble.
First pitch is set for 6:30 PM on Tuesday night in what’s being billed as a steamy one at FNB.
Harrisburg’s lineup for the opener features Cayden Wallace at third base and Bo Davidson leading things off for Richmond in center field. The Flying Squirrels’ order also includes Parks Harber, Charlie Szykowny, Sabin Ceballos, Maui Ahuna, Jean Carlos Sio, Adrian Sugastey, Ty Hanchey and Diego Velasquez.
The Senators are coming off a mixed weekend against Chesapeake. Sunday’s finale was washed out and will be made up on August 5th in Bowie when the teams meet again.
Harrisburg split the second-half series by winning it 3 games to 2, which gave the club its first series win in over a month. Saturday’s 4-1 loss was a tough offensive night - the Senators managed just one hit, Wallace’s 18th homer of the season.
Connor Van Scoyoc, Alex Clemmey and Alex Young all picked up wins during the series.
Wednesday brings another shot at Richmond, and that one has been tagged as Clemmey Day. Alex Clemmey is coming off one of his better outings of the year against Chesapeake, when he earned his third win.
He’ll be opposed by Yunior Marte, who also faced Harrisburg in the earlier Richmond series. In that game, the Senators tagged Marte for four runs on eight hits and hit .283 against him.
The bigger picture for Harrisburg is pretty simple: the talent is there, the roster is still settling, and the second half is going to ask plenty of a young group that is still learning how to mesh. The Senators also got some reinforcements from A+ this week while losing some of their better relief arms. After finally breaking through with a series win, they’ll try to turn that into something more against one of the division’s top clubs.
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