Freedom defeat Things for sweep

It was a 1980s theme night at Consol Energy Park Friday, and when the Florence Freedoms Davis Harris stepped into the batters box in the top of the seventh inning, a picture of Rocky Balboa, the fictional pugilistic character made famous by actor Sylvester Stallone, was displayed on the large video board in right centerfield.

It was indeed appropriate because Harris would deliver a knockout punch to the Wild Things.

Harris, who at the time was 0-for-11 in the series, smacked a two-run RBI that was the key hit in a four-run inning that send Florence to a 5-3 victory and sweep of the three-game series.

It was a good series for us, Florence manager Fran Riordan said. We played very good defense, had good starts from our pitchers and our bullpen made some good pitches when we had to.

Harris hit came one batter after Florence scored the games first run, breaking up a pitchers duel between the Wild Things Jhonny Montoya (1-1) and Freedom lefty Andres Caceres (3-1).

Both starters were fun to watch tonight, Riordan said. Montoya threw strikes with two pitches and got outs with his changeup. Caceres covered both sides of the plate.

With both pitchers dominating, about the only excitement in the first six innings came when Washington third baseman Taylor Oldham lost a single and was called out for using an illegal bat in the first inning. Oldham, the Wild Things No. 3 hitter, singled to apparently put runners on first and second with one out.

However, Riordan came out of the visitors dugout and pointed out to home plate umpire Kirk Domanick that the barrel of Oldhams bat was smugged with reddish-brown paint, which Riordan said was illegal and came from rubbing the bat against a railing when the teams played in Florence.

Domaniclk and base umpire DW Brown looked at the bat, and though the paint mark had nothing to do with the flight of the baseball on the hit, ruled that Oldham was out and Washingtons Will Arnold had to return to first base. Brown also confiscated the bat and took it to the umpires room.

Riordan said that under normal circumstances, he would not have mentioned anything about the bat to the umpires.

Originally posted here:
Freedom defeat Things for sweep