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It was a lovely
evening at PNC, and this year’s edition of
the Thunder Bay All-Stars did not disappoint
the fans. Actually the fans saw two games.
The first game
was a pitchers dual between Johan Santana of
the NL and Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and
Brian Lawrence of the AL. The four combined
for 9 strikeouts, 2 walks, 3 hits and 1 lone
run. But after that it was a totally
different game.
The two teams
combined for 14 runs and 19 hits the rest of
the way to give the fans a game that they
could thoroughly enjoy. It looked like the
NL was going to run away and hide as Pedro
Martinez was hammered for 4 run in 1/3 of an
innings work. The big blow was a Chase
Utley HR to cap the 4 run barrage unleashed
on Pedro.
The AL got
heated up in the 6th innings and
it was Manny Ramriez and Co. hanging a 3
spot on the NL to make the score 5-4 NL.
Manny hit a shot off Andy Sisco that
traveled an estimated 483 ft into the upper
deck at PNC Park. But not to be out done,
the NL answered with 2 runs of their own in
the bottom of the 6th inning.
Throughout the
rest of the game the AL would score and the
NL would answer. In the end the NL hung on
to win by a score of 8-7. Chase Utley was
named the games MVP. Though Utley was
officially only 1 for 1 on the day that hit
was a huge solo shot in the 4th
inning. Also, Utley was able to accomplish
the unthinkable in an All-Star game.
Following a leadoff double by Jason Varitek
in the 3rd inning, Utley laid
down a picture perfect bunt to move Varitek
to third where he scored on a single by
Adrian Beltre. As it turned out, that first
run was an important run. BJ Ryan came in
to entice Lance Berkman in grounding out to
end the ball game as pick up the save, with
the tying run 90 feet away from home.
That’s it from
PNC Park where the final score is the NL 8
and AL 7.
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