The Richmond Flying Squirrels make the 4 hour bus ride up to City Island to renew their rivalry with the Harrisburg Senators. The Flying Squirrels won the first series earlier this month in Richmond 4 games to 2. The Senators will look for revenge on the first half division champions in this week’s series. Sens give the ball to Josh Randall tonight looking to stay Mr. Consistent. Josh had yet another good outing last week against Chesapeake and continues to pitch well in his short AA tenure. Richmond hands the ball to RHP Trystan Vrieling, who last pitched against the Senators in the previous series. Vrieling gave Senators hitters fits through his 5 innings on the mound.

Richmond starts out the second half with a 5-1 record, picking up right where they left off in the season’s first half. The Sens come into the series 3-2 after picking up a rain shortened series win over Chesapeake last week. The Sens enter tonight’s game 1.5 games behind Richmond for first place in the division. The Sens need a big series this week to set the tone for a second half battle with several Southwest Divison foes who are playing better of late.

Tuesday night baseball from beautiful, steaming hot FNB is coming right up. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 PM. Tonight’s starting lineups are below.

Richmond Flying Squirrels Lineup: 1. Bo Davidson CF 2. Parks Harber LF 3. Charlie Szykowny 3B 4. Sabin Ceballos 1B 5. Maui Ahuna SS 6. Jean Carlos Sio RF 7. Adrian Sugastey C 8. Ty Hanchey DH 9. Diego Velasquez 2B

Harrisburg Senators Lineup: 1. Sam Brown LF 2. Devin Fitz-Gerald 2B 3. Cayden Wallace SS 4. Sam Petersen CF 5. Max Romero Jr DH 6. Caleb Lomavita C 7. Ethan Petry 1B 8. Leandro Pineda RF 9. Kervin Pichardo 3B

The Senators and Baysox were rained out on Sunday afternoon for the finale of their 6 game set. Sunday’s game will be made up on August 5th when the teams play each other during their next series in Bowie. The Sens won the first series of the second half 3 games to 2 and took heir first series in over a month. The Senators were one hit, a Cayden Wallace home run, during Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Baysox. Wallace’s home run was his 18th on the season. Recently promoted Connor Van Scoyoc, Alex Clemmey and Alex Young all registered victories for the Sens in the series. The teams will play two more series the remainder of the season.

Game 2 vs. The Flying Squirrels is Clemmey Day! Alex is coming off of one of his better outings of the year in last week’s series against Chesapeake. He recorded his third win of the season in the outing. Yunior Marte takes the ball for the Flying Squirrels. Marte pitched again the Senators in their series earlier this month in Richmond. The Sens lineup got the best of Marte that night scoring 4 runs on 8 hits, hitting .283 on the night against him. First pitch for Game 2 is scheduled for 6:30 PM on Wednesday evening.

As mentioned above the Sens won a series for the first time in over a month. While it would’ve been nice to take 4 of 5, the confidence a series win can do for your ball club in a long second half can pay dividends. The Sens look to build off of the series and have a good series against a team who will almost certainly be towards the top of the division standings in the second half.

The Sens have a ton of talent and are getting some reinforcements this week from A+, while also losing some of their better relief pitchers. Confidence is the key word. The Senators are a talented but young group, still learning to play together in the revolving door that is Minor League Baseball. This Harrisburg group is still learning to play together and develop. A series win can be contagious to a young group of players who know no differently. We’ll see how the Sens follow up last week’s series against the Baysox. They’re going to need a big series if they want to be in the thick of things for the long run in the second half.