The Marlins opened the fall ’02 season here at Fox Mill Road as they hosted the Blue Jays in a crisp early fall evening. The Blue Jays jumped on top in the first with a walk and a hit batter followed by a weak single to second. However, Marlins started Andrew shut them down with two quick strike outs. This was to set the tone for the rest of the evening as the Marlins scored three times in the bottom of the inning with a shot to short by Ricky, Michael followed with a walk and Andrew smashed a single to short to score the first run. With runners on second and third, Hayden hit a line shot to right to score two runs and give the Marlins a 3-1 lead. Andrew was unstoppable in the second with three strikeouts and the Marlins were off to the races.

In the next four innings the Marlins scored the maximum four runs in each inning. In the second, a couple of leadoff walks to Dave and Ricky were followed by an runs scoring groundout by Michael. Andrew then hit a long shot to left field to clear the bases and score the final three runs of the inning to make the score 7-1.

In the third Dave went to the mound and shut down the Blue Jays with one walk followed by four strikeouts. The Marlins scored four more on seven straight walks. The score was then 11-1. It was more of the same in the fourth as Dave struck out the heart of the order for the Blue Jays. The Marlins added more offense on seven walks to eight batters and the score was then 15-1.

The Marlins continued their great day on the mound with Kevin as he struck out three batters and yielded no runs. The Marlins added some additional insurance with a walk to Mitchell, a smash to second by Matthew and a big single by Kevin. The game was called due to time at 19-1

The coaches were available for a very brief postgame interview. Coach Goldstein said “I liked like I saw from the rookie pitchers and we also had some nice work at catcher — the squad of Michael, Andrew, and Matthew make a nice trio behind the plate. ” Coach Grossman said “its a long season, but I like the hustle I saw, the wonderful pitching, and I even saw some nice swings out there at the plate. We need to work on paying attention to the game while sitting in the dugout, but that should come with time. I also want to thank our fans, they clearly gave us a huge homefield advantage — we are going to be tough at home with fans like this. Lets hope we can build on this start in our game a week from Saturday.”

We note that the Marlins now face a fairly long layoff as they don’t play Saturday, but they do have a practice on Friday at Hook Road from 5:30 – 7:00 and an optional pitching/catching practice on Tuesday — we’ll meet behind the Hook Road field near the tennis courts.

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