Vermont Mountaineers

It really wasn't that dark at the game when I snapped that picture. But that's how crappy point and shoot cameras work. At least it captured the beautiful sunset and rising moon over Recreation Field during last Monday's win over Lowell.

After a slow start to the season, fueled by some of the crappiest fielding I've ever seen outside of Little League, the Mountaineers have won 8 of their last twelve games and are now three games above .500 and four games out of first place with 11 games to play. If the season ended today, they would be the final playoff team in the Northern Division.

Here are the remaining home games:

Tues Jul 22 vs Holyoke
Wed Jul 23 vs Keene
Mon Jul 28 vs North Shore
Tues Jul 29 vs Sanford
Wed Jul 30 vs North Shore
Thur Jul 31 vs Manchester

+ any necessary make-up games from rain outs

One other thing to follow with the team is the Roof Watch. Shortstop Jonathon Roof, who was actually drafted by the Red Sox in 2007 but chose to remain at Michigan St, has been having a dreadful season in the field and is danger of finishing the season with more errors than hits. Right now, he has 14 errors (in 24 games) and 17 hits. Hopefully, he'll get hot over the last two weeks and avoid flirting with the ignominy of his errors outpacing his hits.

One last Mountaineers note, the hitting star of the two championship teams, Curt Smith, was drafted by the Cardinals and is off to a hot start in rookie league for the Johnson City Cardinals. In his first 23 games, he's batting .372 with a slugging percentage of .649, six home runs and 28 RBIs. Even better, he's hitting .559 with runners in scoring position. The guy is simply clutch. He's making all of the scouts that bypassed him in the draft due to his height (slightly under 6') and let him slide to the 39th round look like fools.

Willie Nelson | Moonlight in Vermont | Buy