The word hot had many meanings on the Fourth of July at Eastwood Field.  The temperature was balmy and in the mid-90’s, and the Mahoning Valley Scrappers were riding a six game winning streak.  Their opponent, the Aberdeen Ironbirds were hot too, scoring 21 runs just one night earlier.

A rain delay that lasted an hour and a half forced both teams to put new pitchers in.  Rafael Homblert had a rough ninth for the Scrappers and took the loss.  Jose Nivar pitched the ninth for Aberdeen and earned the win, a 3-1 Aberdeen triumph.

Aberdeen lit up the scoreboard first in the second inning.  Joel Hutter singled with one out.  Doug Bream then singled to put runners on first and second.  Lucas Herbst then singled to drive in Hutter.  Scrapper starter Jake Sisco avoided further harm and escaped the inning with just one run given up.

The Scrappers scored a run to tie the game in the third.  Erik Gonzalez singled to start the inning.  Ironbirds catcher, Pedro Perez, then sailed a pickoff attempt at first base into right field allowing Gonzalez to advance to third.  Jairo Kelly then doubled home Gonzalez to tie the game.

Aberdeen and Mahoning Valley battled through a few scoreless innings and lightning started rearing its ugly head from the West around the beginning of the seventh inning of a 1-1 game.  3,217 fans mostly stuck around through Mother Nature’s own Fourth of July display.

Cody Penny started the sixth inning out of the Scrapper bullpen and threw two quality innings.  Penny was relieved by Jack Wagoner to start the eighth.

The thunder and the sound of fireworks being shot off nearby were hard to differentiate, but it was starting to become obvious from the lightning that a race was on to finish the game.

In the bottom of the eighth, Two of the hottest Scrapper reached base with two outs.  Joey Wendle gathered his second hit of the game, a double, and then Charlie Valerio walked to put runners on first and second with two men out.  Juan Romero, who leads the league in homers, struck out looking to end the inning.

With nobody out in the the ninth, the wind kicked up, and the umpires had no choice with the storm closing in but to stop play.  The grounds crew hustled to get the tarp up and radar was looking ugly.

After an hour-and-a-half rain delay, play was set to resume.  Rafael Homblert took over pitching duties for the Scrappers when play resumed and would be the pitcher of record.  Torsten Bross walked and Hutter bunted to put men on first and second with no outs for the Ironbirds.  Bream then bunted and the ball went right through Homblert’s legs.  Anthony Vega singled to right knocking in Bross.  Hunter Jones threw out Hutter at home trying to score from second.  A wild pitch made it 3-1.

Trailing 3-1, the Scrappers were unable to really in the ninth.